
Class 
Book. 



AMHERST COLLEGE. 



N 



^%ntjn$i 24^ /cPJ^. 



AMHERST : 

J. S, & C. ADAMS PRINTERS. 

1836, 



LI 1^1 



03 '1 9 8 12. 



CONTENTS. 

Page. 

1. Oratio Salutatoria 5 

2. Essay. Martyrdom to principle - - - - 9 

3. Essay. Scepticism of men of genius - . _ 21 

4. Essay. Idiidelity subversive of civil liberty - - 45 

5. Dissertation. Blind admiration of men of genius 48 
G. Disputation. Which is the more prejudicial to benevolent 

enterprise, infidelity or war ? » - - . 13 

7. Essay. Copy-right law ------ 2b 

8. Dissertation. American biography ... 33 

9. Oration, The triumph of truth. - - - - 36 
10, Disputation. Is the progress of knowledge to be attributed 

more to genius than enthusiasm in common minds '? 41 

IT. Dissertation. Influence of the imagination on eloquence 31 

12, Disputation. Ought the attempt to civilize the Indians of 

thiscountry lobe abandoned] . - - . 82 

13, Oration. The obligations of genius to common minds 68 

14. Oration. Mutability of national characteristics - 51 

15. Disputation, Is the influence of severe or commendatory 

criticism, more favorable to literature? - - - 77 

16, Oration. The home of genius .... 57 

17. Philosophical Oration, The relation of right to the will of 

the Deity ..--...„ 87 

18. Oration. Taste— as connected with national character 62 

19, Oration. Intellectual character of the men of the Pvevolu- 

tion -....._-- 91 
SO. Oration, Immortality of mental influence, with the Vale-. 

dictory Addresses -_._.- % 



NOTE. 

It occurred to the authors of the following pieces, a few days 
previous to Commencement, that they might secure to themselves 
each other's last Collegiate exercise in the most convenient form by 
collecting and publishing them, in a volume like the present — thus 
laying a foundation for recollections of deep interest in after life. 

A few copies of the following articles therefore are presented in 
this form exclusively for the members' of thej graduating class, 
and through them, if they choose, for their friends. And should a 
stray number fall under the observation of any other than those al- 
ready mentioned — we bespeak the exercise of charity, — perhaps 
special forgiveness— at any rate charity. — As an apology for the nu- 
merous typographical errors, it may be prape^ to state that the 
several exercises were printed during the Senior vacation, in|the ab- 
sence of most of the authors ; and mistakes consequently occur- 
red which might have been avoided by a personal revision. The 
most important of these are noticed in the errata. 

Amherst College, Aug. 24, 1836. 



ERRATA. 

Pages, line 4, from top,/o?-aliis read alio. 

6. 8. bottom, /or hoc rcfficZhac. 

15. 7. after 'Hymns of praise have often ascended from the 

battle-field,' rea^Z'but none can ever arise from the in- 
fidel's breast,' 
19. 7. bottom,/or piety rmcZ pity. 

26. 11 top./o?- soon rca^Z low. 

■ 38, 8. bottom/o?" power ?e«c? former. 

39. 13. /or adopted reatJ adapted, 

*.' 12, '• /o?" savage reto^^ scourge. 

40 6. top /or these read! the. 

'• " bottom ?-efld' till every false hypothesis' &c» 

56. 2. top /or It read Its. 

76. 6. top/or CatalinareacZCataline. 

77. 5. bottom/Qr where refficZwhea. 



COMMENCEMENT BOOK, 



ORATIO SALUTATORIA. 

By a. H. Bullock, Royalston. 

Reditum hujus diei solennis et nos et te, Prceses ven- 
erande, oportet gratulari, festivitatibus ej usque Isetari. 
Nunc nobis in mentem venit, anniversario proximi anni, 
tuus locus ab aliis occupatus. In litore peregrino, eodem 
tempore, gaudebas. Q,uanquam tui desiderio affecti su- 
mus, nostri animos tamen, te juvisse in Capitolio Anglico 
rem literariam religionemque fama accipere, perfudit gau- 
dio. Nunc peregre rediis. Nos et omnes, quia hodie 
nobis ante oculos versaris, valde delectat. Classem alter- 
teram Collegii ad metam pertingere hodie spectandum est. 
Etiamsi prssceptiones tuas nob habuimus omnibus in arti- 
bus, — etiamsi in templum philosophise morumque ab alio 
introducti sumus, proximo anno, doctique profunda rerum 
divinarum penetrare, usque eo quo opus est, comparationis 
filo tenui perducti ; tamen multis de causis, de nobis opti- 
me meritus es, nam quamdiu respicere possumus, per an- 
nos quatuor, et sub tua curatione nos ipsos extitisse remin- 
1 



() COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

isci, tamdiu in te solicitudinem nobis benevolam. Consilia 
paterna, instructiones pretiosas, fuisse videmus. Pro illis 
omnibus recordationes benignas gratiasque ingenuas nos- 
tras volentes prsebuimus. Hunc Collegium, te prsesidente, 
sospitet Deus. Salve, Prceses venerate et carissime ! Sit 
ros cceH super habitationem vestram. 

Curatores honorandi et nohilissimi : Ad has jedes sa- 
cras quotannis redire in consuetudinem ventum est — mos 
Igetissimus, utilissimus, sacerrimus. Via Collegii peracta 
auspicate ducentibus vobis, vos frequentes nostrum offici- 
um ultimum exsequi videre permagne gratulamur. Vos- 
met gratissimos nobis fecistis. Usque dum concordiam 
felicem nobis prsestatam a sapientibus legibus vestris 
recordi delectabit, et linguse Grsecse et Latinse studium 
omnesque artes liberales hujus seminarii, tamdiu nomina 
vestra memoriis nostris consecrabuntur. — Nobis concedite 
precationem faustam. In futurum siquando aut ante ocu- 
los aut in cogitatione nostra versamini, beneficia a Deo 
vobis implorabimus. Salvete, homines benignissimi ! 

Listructores literati et dilecti : A quibus docti sumus 
artes et scientias qu« nimirum et nostrum et aliorum ani- 
mos illuminant, certe eos oportet salutare. Nos memores 
beneficiorum vestrum prssstare optamus. Nostris ab ani- 
mis, recitationis conclavis disciplina, colloquii amicitia, cur- 
ationis anxietas, affectus gratiss movent. Qu^ voces hoc 
occasione in templo hoc audientur, qui vultus cohortantes 
hie adspiciuntur, quse Isetitia hunc concursum excitet, vestra 
causa testimonium dicunt. Vestrum gratia, vehementer 
conabimur tempore futuro ; permagne vestra interest nos 
esse valentes bonosque nam quo minus ingeniis possimus, 
non vobis omnes laudem dabunt. Semper in bene meritos 
professores animos prsestabimus. 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 7 

Apud vos, socii amatissimi, dicendom est mihi. Jam- 
dudum factum est, cum Collegii aulas intravimus. Q.uas 
oblectationes literarias, eas pariter, comrauniter comperi- 
mus per omne tempus ; quas si necesse sit dirimere, dolore 
dirimemus. Hujus diei spectaculum— hoc cujusmodi est ! 
Cursus academici anxietates et angustias videmus prceteri- 
tas, — Hujus nostrum meritorum tribunalis ut benevolen- 
tiam conciliemus, sensus oblectemus, satisfaciamus expec- 
tationes videndum est. Cavendum est ne spem temerariam 
habeamus, nam banc frequentiam ad effectos magnos nori 
dubito spectare, — eloquentice candidatos, quas doctrinas et 
virtutes acquisiverint, eas pro scientia, literis, libertate ex- 
ercituros esse. Separatio hodierna anniversaria, fratres 
dilecti — quam tristis, prteterito tempore in memoria habito ! 
Q,uam solicitudine repleta, futuro prospecto ! Nostra 
setate, baud fere quisquis Mascenas versatur : nee non 
nunquam, juratores aut judices faventes: atque necesse 
est ut rerum divinarum Curatores operam et dolorem 
ferant, baud scio an prsemoriantur. Igitur, sodales fortes, 
alacres, coeli arbitrio freti vela pandite. Denique quid 
superest, nisi ut vos salutem, semel in perpetuum salutem '.^ 
Gluod commune vinculum omnium artium, amicitiee et 
religionis fecimus validissimum nobilissimumque, hoc 
disrumpi minime fas aut in vita aut in morte aut in seter- 
nitate. 

Salvete, Spectalores audientes : Nostris ingeniis mon- 
umentum diuturnum nobisque jucundissimum, vestrum 
ora approbationesque putamus. Quam nos rem agimus ? — 
nihil aliud, nisi ut frontem nostram vestrse manus mollissi- 
msd circumdant laureola. — Nunc salvete, seniores exultan- 
tes— 'vosque juniores et jam quadam gravitate obsessi : et 



8 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

preecipue vos sophomores magniloqui : et vos, nostrse 
novi hospites fraternitatis, victaros hie sine solicitudine, 
sine tristitia, precamus. B eii i eakft ss matronse, salutem 
vobis 'vere oportet dicamus, bonitates vestri laudemus, et 
vos in partes nostrum trahemus. Atqui ante omnes, vos, 
paellas formositate nitentes^prsetimemnsttamen delectamur 
adire. Virginis os subridens moerorem dispellit. Cnjus- 
vis harum piiiellarum, quisquis horum ad gradum initian- 
dorum, amicitias conciliavit? salve tu — mehercle, extra 

jocum, salve ! ^Jam postremo, salvete, enmnes mihi ante 

ocnlos versati. Senes et juvenes ! homines et mnlieres ! 
docti indoctique ! vos in mane, vos in asternum salutam.iis. 



ESSAY. 

Martyrdom fo Princijjh. 

By John A. Delano, Ar/iherst. 

The great aim of mankind is at eliect. They seek to 
produce some sensation in the hody politic, thereby ren- 
dering themselves ' the observed of all observers.' _ Any 
thing which will act upon men, (of whom it has been said 
that they will be lazy when they can,) and stimulate to 
action not wholly vicious in its character — whatever 
is adapted to bring out the intellectual or bodily powers 
should be seized upon with the utmost tenacity. To the 
mind no less than to the body, is attached a certain sluggish- 
ness which must be shaken off by some extraneous force, 
or broken up by some violent mental tempest before it can 
act with the necessary concentration. As the air after a 
hot and enervating day weighs down the body with a 
-deadly oppressiveness until the lightning has dissipated 
its noxious vapors, and given it an invigorating influence, 
so the the mind lies in indolence till awakened by the 
whisperings of hope or the lashings of ambition. There 
is something highly agreeable in standing forth the ob- 
ject on which the Argus eyes of the public are centered 
with a scrutiny closer than that of Rome's severest censors, 
yet pursuing a course either direct or tortuous, and pre- 
serving the grand mark at which one is ^immg— effect— 
without swerving in the least from the great impelling 
1* 



10 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

power — principle. He advances with a single end in 
view, gradually destroying all external circumstances that 
may have influenced him, — -breaking each round of the 
ladder as he rises, till he stands upon the broad platform 
at the top — his Principles. Ruinous consequences would 
follow if these bulwarks to virtue were removed, and each 
should give his passions the rein unrestrained by any con- 
servative power — if the will should run masterless, and 
action be governed by conflicting interests alone. Since oth- 
erwise there would be occasioned the ruption or rather the 
total disorganization of the social compact, need it be a mat- 
ter of wonder if Philanthropy and Benevolence furnish 
many who are ready to stand or fail with their princi- 
ples? Nay, so far from it, that every one who would 
gain confidence in his opinions must make his motto 
Principles or Nothing, and gird himself for their defence 
either with the brazen armor of Impudence, or the iron mail 
of Hypocrisy, for if sincere, there are ten chances to one that 
his motives and principles will be misunderstood. And 
not only must one rant and rave about the purity of his 
designs, and the sacredness of his principles even to the 
confounding both him^self and adversary, but rather than 
desert his cause he must fall beneath the ruins of his prin- 
ciples after seeing his rival inscribe upon the fabric he 
had reared the soul-sickening ' Tekel.' What admiration 
do such heroes not deserve ! having sacrificed friends, and 
fortune, happiness, every thing, to close their bright career 
by a glorious self-devoted martyrdom to principle. Many 
a heart has quickened its pulsations when the noble feats 
of some gallant knight, battling for the cross in ' Paynim 
Land' have inspired the pages of romance. The Ci'usa 



C ItI M E N C E M E N T E X E R C I S E S. 11 

der sacrificed all for his honor and his ' Ladye love,' each 
step to whose affections was a blow upon the crest of the 
turbaned Pagan. Patriotism has been the theme of pan- 
egyric and song. It is natural that mind should sympa- 
thise with mind. But if deeds of chivalry fire the heart, 
and a country's benefactor desires a remembrance, is there 
no chord left which shall vibrate at the recital of every 
thing valuable and dear sacrificed upon the altar of Prin- 
ciple ? There is something too grand, too magnificent in 
the idea of yielding a voluntary offering, private feelings 
and happiness to stern unyielding principle. In no age 
more than the present has there been manifested a more 
praise-worthy zeal to stand boldly forth in defence of one's 
opinions or nobly fall with them. 

The advocate for long established institutions, wnth firm 
resolve to maintain the customs of his ancestors unimpair- 
ed, is ready to inflict a speech of some hours duration on 
the unhappy party w^ho, through a belief in the superior 
wisdom, of the present generation compared with their fa- 
thers of witchcraft memory, venture to assert the prefer- 
ence of a close-tonsured cranium, to the sesquipedalian 
queue of former times. "With no less zeal and eloquence 
does the daring innovator sneer at the consummate folly 
of our venerable fathers for preferring the ponderous bell 
crown to the nice dapper little hat of '36. Each party, 
whether innovator or antiquary, trusting to the justice of 
his own cause is prepared to go any lengths. — Aye ! he 
will lead you a chase through the musty parchments of 
ancient history and the voluminous annals of mod- 
ern times, to shew the important fact that Cyrus the Per- 
sian wore his natural hair, aud that C4eorge the Third wore 



12 COMMENCEMENTEXERCISES. 

There are also martyrs of political principles, both ad- 
ministration and anti-administration, champions of manu- 
facturing and commercial interests, advocates of internal 
improvement and defenders of a contrary policy, the man 
who is ready to die for his country and the one who is 
willing to die for his whiskey. There are those politi- 
ticians who will grant all to their opponents but the great 
principle that an article costing five cents is dearer than 
one costing four, and there, are as many who will contend 
that the contrary is true. These too are martyrs to 
Principle. 

The present is an era distinguished for benevolent en- 
terprise, exerted in the grand object of ameliorating the 
condition of mankind by the diffusion of civilization. To 
every society, no matter what its end, there must be an 
Anti — probably to furnish martyrs to counterbalance. Ev- 
ery scheme must have its supporters, from the maintainers 
of the great plan of enlightening a heathen world, to the 
advocates of a vegetable diet as best adapted to the happi- 
ness of man. The latter must certainly fall martyrs to 
their principles if carried out as commenced. In truth 
the world is crowded with such martyrs. To every opin- 
ion there are numbers ready to sacrifice all that is valua- 
ble in life rather than depart one iota from their princi- 
ples. It is a mistaken sensibility that leads' men to la- 
ment the lot of those who have forfeited so much to gain 
the object of their highest aspirations. 



DISPUTATION. 

Infidelity and War :— -their coniimrative infiuence on 
benevolent enterprise. 

By William C. Treadwell, Salem, 

When Napoleon was in the zenith of his glory, it 
seemed for a time as if the last hope of the world was 
about to expire. He made every dwelling a castle, and 
turned the implements of peaceful toil and even the bells 
of the churches into the murderous weapons of war. Re- 
venge and lust prevailed to the subversion of all religion, — 
the most endearing ties were sundered, — and the vine- 
clad hills of the fairest portion of the world resembled the 
entrance to the abodes of hell. But France, — devotedi 
guilty France, — had seen another and a gloomier picture. 
Infidelity had been long brooding over the ruins of that 
mighty Empire, and cherishing the infancy of that vile 
offspring which grew up into such an impious race. It 
moved like some mighty spirit on the face of the waters, 
but, instead of light and joy, there sprang up only dark- 
ness and sorrow. It erected the highway on which the 
burning chariot of war rolled, and the scaffold on which 
the unfortunate king and nobles were cruelly murdered, — 
whilst the temples of the Most High were desecrated and 
his servants slain by the sword. Its altar was the guillo- 
tine,— -its priest the executioner,— its oblations the blood 
of murdered innocence, and its judges the blood-thirsty 
Jacobins, 



14 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

It is difficult to draw the parallel between the two states 
of such a mighty empire, but one characteristic of infideli- 
ty is plainly shown, — the secrecy and silence with which 
it performs its work. The effects of war are visible to 
all ; — in the cities destroyed — the victims slain and scat- 
tered in its path — and the convulsions arising in society. 
Its sound is heard afar off, causing trembling and alarm 
before it is f^lt, whilst infidelity steals along with the 
noiseless tread of the pestilence. The one resembles the 
earthquake which removes all the ancient landmarks and 
levels the proudest works of art : — the other the destroy- 
ing angel, who breathes upon a sleeping host whilst they 
melt silently away. Besides, the effects of the latter are 
far more enduring than those of the former. It is indeed 
but seldom that the gates of Janus can be closed, especial- 
ly in our own time ; but in any particular place war is a 
transient evil. The fields can again be made to yield 
their increase, — the villages may be rebuilt, and all nature 
may smile in plenty and peace. The husbandman may 
return to his toil and the family to their fireside, whilst 
the busy hum of industry will again greet the ear. But 
for the soul laboring under this foul disease, the use of a 
remedy is almost hopeless. It has left its former abode of 
innocence, and a flaming sword moves every way to guard 
the entrance. It has cast away the only anchor of hope, 
and thrown itself into the grasp of that law which is as 
eternal as the existence and as terrible as the wrath of its 
Author. Thus the permanency and secrecy of infidelity 
unite to destroy every benevolent feeling of the heart. 
There is not one throb of benevolent sympathy, — no soli- 
tary feeling of compassion for distress or of love for virtue 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 15 

but finds its grave here. It is the water of oblivion for 
every anxious care and the opiate for every motive to in- 
tense and continued action. From the nature of the case, 
it must be so. 

To the eye of the believer the world presents a scene 
of misery hitherto unequalled. Instead of being filled 
with the glory of its Maker, it is covered with altars on 
which strange fire is continually ascending. Moloch still 
sits upon his bloody throne, and the corrupt mythology of 
the ancients is supplanted by the more debasing rites of 
paganism. The wickedness and crime of Christendom 
meet with a response from the darkness of heathenism, 
whilst the misery thus brought upon mankind is equalled 
only by its duration. But the infidel turns away from all 
this as the creation of a fiery imagination, The bow of 
promise which animates the true believer is to him the por- 
tentous signal full of doubt and gloom. Even admitting the 
reality of thesulTering, he can provide no remedy, — so that 
his heart is doubly closed to any appeals to its sympathies. 

Such are some of the evils of infidelity. War may par- 
alyze the tender emotion for a time, and shut up the com- 
passionate heart. It may sunder the strongest ties and 
leave its victims solitary and broken-hearted. But it can- 
not enter the heart and do its work there with such com- 
plete success. Hymns of praise have often ascended from 
the battle field. The one is felt to be an evil, — the other 
is hailed at its first approach and even while the poison is 
rankling in his breast the victim is proud in his fancied 
security. The ' Saint's Everlasting Rest' was composed 
amidst the tumults of a camp, and the strongest posts in the 
army of Christ have been filled by men w^ho put off their 
temporal weapons to put on their spiritual. It cannot be 



16 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

maintained that the spirit of war is consistent with that of 
Christianity, On the contrary, the nations shall learn 
war no more, when the mild spirit of Christianity per- 
vades every heart, Yet, parallel with that glorious event, 
and equally celebrated by a redeemed world, will be the 
utter extinction of infidelity from among men. , 



•^ 



DISPUTATION. 

Infidelity and War : — their co7nparative influence on 
benevolent enterprise. 

By Sylvander Hutchinson, Sutton. 

The obstacles to the universal triumph of benevolence 
which have already been surmounted are numerous and 
great. But the work is not yet accomplished. Infidelity 
and war still exert a mighty influence for all that is evil 
and against all that is good. I would not pluck from the 
dark brow of infidelity its sable wreath, or contribute in 
the least to render its real character less conspicuous. 
But destructive as it is to benevolent enterprise, I shall 
plead for the blood stained honors of war in this unholy 
cause. The success of benevolent effort is, to a g-reat ex- 
tent, dependent on pecuniary resources. But when the 
wealth of a community is exhausted in naval and military 
preparations and in sustaining armies, benevolent enter- 
prise must languish or expire. It has been estimated that 
the United States have expended in war and warlike pre- 
parations, four hundred and fifty millions since' the revo- 
lution. England is groaning under a debt of three thou- 
sand millions, contracted by war. But the amount actual- 
ly appropriated to the support of war is not all that is ab- 
stracted from useful purposes. Whole provinces, with 
their cities, villages, and ripening harvests, are sometimes 
given up to pillage and spoliation. And the march of a 
2 



18 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

retreating army is marked with devastation and ruin, that 
the pursuers may find nought but a barren waste. Nor is 
this all; valuable lives are sacrificed, even the lives of 
those whose hands were ready for every good work. But 
infidelity demands not — it destroys not the wealth of the 
community ; it requires not the sacrifice of life. When a 
country becomes the seat of war, there is an end to system- 
atic, benevolent eflbrt. The foundations of society are 
broken up, charitable institutions destroyed, and intercom- 
munication cut off. Those who have been the almoners of 
temporal and spiritual blessings to the destitute must now 
engage in the mortal strife, either at the command of su- 
perior power, or to defend themselves. The olive branch 
of peace must be exchanged for the sword, and the deeds 
of benevolence for the work of death. 

When v/ar breaks out in the vicinity of successful mis- 
sionary operations, the injury efiected is incalculable. 
The missionary is driven from his field of labor, and those 
who have just begun to learn the arts and enjoy the bles- 
sings of civilization, are left to grope their way back again 
to the darkness of paganism. It is thus that the pioneer 
of the gospel is compelled, with a heavy heart and tearful 
eye, to witness the entire destruction of that which has 
cost him years of laborious toil. Infidelity may hold with 
an iron grasp its deluded victims, and drag them in tri- 
umph at its chariot wheels. But war enslaves both 
riends and foes. The former exerts a moral — the latter 
both physical and moral power. 

It is often asserted that infidelity is the cause of war, and 
and therefore justly chargeable with all its ruinous effects 
. To this it may be replied, that war is as really the cause 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES, 19 

of infidelity. For there is no place where it springs up 
with such luxuriance as in the camp. And the reply is 
worth as much as the assertion. The influence of the 
spirit of war on the formation of character ought not to be 
overlooked ; for this is the principal foundation for errors 
of judgment, as to its destructive tendency. This spirit 
has been popular with the majority of mankind in all ages. 
It has been incorporated with our systems of education. 
Hence the mind is early prepared to contemplate scenes of 
carnage and blood without just abhorrence, and even with 
approbation. History, also, adds its influence to create 
and perpetuate the illusion. It presents the bright side of 
the picture while ft conceals the other from our view. In 
consequence of this state of things, a warlike spirit has be- 
come interwoven with all our associations and habits of 
thought. And this is the reason why so few rightly esti- 
mate its pernicious influence on the cause of benevolence. 
It is not so with infidelity. There is not here the same 
danger of misjudging. It does not bear upon its front 
the attractive motto "patriotism and national glory.' Its 
real character will oftener show itself, and community on- 
ly need the alarm to resist its influence. The necessary 
tendency of war is to destroy benevolent feeling, to blunt the 
moral sense, and open the flood gates of iniquity. The 
guilty passions swell and rage, — piety and compassion 
give place to the rancor of hostile feeling, — the feeble re- 
straints of virtue yield to the accumulating pressure, and 
vice pours forth its flood of bitter waters. Amidst these 
conflicting elements there is little disposition to practice 
the works of love, and little opportunity for its motives to 
operate upon the mind. Infidelity, though it removes the 



20 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

great motive to the practice of benevolence — the authority 
of the scriptures — leaves others untouched by its withering 
hand. Regard for his own reputation or compassion for 
the afflicted, may induce the infidel to embark in- the same 
benevolent enterprises in which the christian engages from 
higher motives. 

But it may be difficult, at last, to decide the question : 
War and infidelity — benevolence has no sympathy with 
either. She weeps over them both. Let all the friends of 
man unite their efforts to hasten the introduction of that 
day when infidelity shall hide its head in darkness, and 
the blasts of the trumpet and the roar of cannon shall be 
exchanged for the songs of Zion and the triumphs of the 
gospel. 



. ESSAY. 

Scepticism of Scientific Men. 

By Lycortas L. Bruuer, Wilhraham, 

Long has the mind been under the influence of scepti- 
cism. Every science introduced into the world, has afford- 
ed some materials for its more extended circulation. To 
sustain it, its supporters have been compelled to resort to 
almost every resource. But they have found their firmest 
hold in the more abstruse departments of knowledge — in 
those beyond the gaze of common minds, and too obscured 
by mists and clouds for the distinct perception of men 
of a vision less keen. 

The mysticisms and sophisms of the schoolmen were 
most fruitful in giving currency to sceptical dogmas. 
The philosophers of those times, professing to possess 
the only desirable knowledge as well as the keys that 
gained access to it, held the world in entire submis- 
sion. No doctrines were too absurd to be believed. To 
them,, the earth on which they trod was but an ima- 
ginary existence : — themselves, their own bodies were not. 
So it was with physical science. Principles of a different 
character, indeed, but of equal absurdity, prevailed 
throughout its whole extent. The two sciences have been 
in a measure connected. Whatever conclusion was at- 
tained in theory in mental was carried out in practice in 
natural science. The devotees of both sciences have ex- 
2* 



22 COMMENCE MENTEXERCISE^. 

erted themselves to their utmost to palm upon the world 
principles of the most pernicious tendency. On the one 
hand we have seen the mighty mind of Hume, with con- 
scious pride and power, striking- against every gystem 
clashing with his own, or crushing it within his fatal 
grasp. On the other hand, we have seen the proud, 
conceited dissolute BufFon, enticing and alluring hy the 
lofty harmony of his style and by his majestic ima- 
ges, while he intensely plies his povv^ers through a 
long life to discover, if possible, defects or contradic- 
tions in the works of nature, that he may employ 
them in destroying the few remaining seeds of piety in 
man and throw over the world a universal scepticism. So 
many others have been employed in these sciences who 
have cherished atheistical sentiments, that some have been 
led to suppose there was in them a magic influence which 
thus perverted the reason. They have on this account 
condemned all the abstruse sciences as dangerous in their 
tendencies alike to the intellect and the heart. They 
have supposed that it was impossible for men to be cor- 
rect and independent reasoners without necessarily swerv- 
ing from the common faith. But such is not the case. 
The fault is not in the science ; — it is not accountable for 
their errors. Men have been led to doubt by other causes, 
and in many .instances they have adopted and published 
sceptical opinions merely from selfish considerations. 
Pride or literary vanity has been in a majority of instan- 
ces the sole cause of all their disbelief In natural science, 
unwilling that nature should be her own lawgiver, they 
have wished to prescribe laws for her operations. They 
would not search for facts, and, by legitimate inference>s 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 23 

from them, build up a correct system. It was too humili- 
ating for their proud natures. It is this same spirit which 
has led so many mental philosophers into inextricable dif- 
ficulties. They have begun by denying the self-evident 
principles on which all truth rests, and have thus arrived 
at the most absurd conclusions. It is this pride which 
is the most effectual barrier to all advancement in any 
science, and which has done more than any thing else for 
the dissemination of error. This was the predominant 
passion of both BufFon and Hume. It is indeed wonder- 
ful that men gifted with such powers of mind should be 
thus influenced. But so great was their pride that when 
once they had taken a step, they could not endure the 
thought of retracing it. When such becomes the ruling 
passion truth must suffer, for the mind is ready to embrace 
the most startling theories. 

The system of scepticism throughout, with all its 
boasted liberality, is a narrow, illiberal, and selfish sys- 
tem. The sceptic, too, is, of all men, the most cred- 
ulous. He will give his assent to doctrines the most 
unfounded, and with the least degree of evidence. But 
his religious belief is not unsettled by the sciences. 
When the mind is divested of all prejudice, instead of 
exerting a sceptical influence, they tend to liberalize 
it — to enlarge its views and give greater scope to its 
faculties. It is under the influence of science that the 
mind has made and is destined to make its noblest 
efforts. The sceptic sees no beauty in the earth smiling 
in its loveliness, nor in the heavens with their myriads of 
sparkling gems. To him ' they are as brass, and the 
earth under his feet is iron.' All is a co*nfused, forsaken 



24 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

mass, — the result of mere chance. But the man of up- 
right mind sees in eveiy opening* and in every falling leaf 
the hand of his Creator. It is but recently that men have 
been willing to believe that science and religion could be 
reconciled. When science was in its infancy, it was 
thought impossible that a believer in Christianity could be 
at the same time a Naturalist or a Philosopher. - But the 
times have changed, and the scales have been turned. 
The shafts of Infidelity now either fall harmlessly to the 
ground or are hurled back with retributive vengeance up- 
on their employers. Infidelity and Atheism are fast pass- 
ing away and will soon be forgotten, or remembered 
only as the follies of a corrupt age. Soon will the altars 
of science and religion be united to mingle their fires and 
send up a purer and steadier flame. 



ESSAY. 

The Copy-right haw. 

By Robert F. Fassitt, Philadelphia, Pa, 

The native of old Albion looks with delight at the 
records of the deeds of her statesmen and warriors. The 
fame of her battles bravely fought and hardly won, fills 
him with a noble pride for the superiority of his country. 
But it is with higher emotions, that he turns to the con- 
templation of her literature, and the blush of conscious 
merit colors his cheek on such a retrospection. He knows 
that when the fame of her heroes shall scarcely twinkle 
in coming ages, the productions of her immortal minds 
will be as fresh and vigorous as ever. 

The American while he can point with exultation to 
the deeds of the Revolution, and the noble achievements 
of its patriots, when he comes to the contemplation of our 
literature, feels conscious of our inferiority. What then 
is the cause of this inferiority? Has the blood of our Brit- 
ish ancestors grown sluggish in our veins, and does it no 
longer answer to the calls of fame ? Have our free insti- 
tutions checked the growth of the rising plant of genius'? 
Do our mountains and rivers, our majestic'scenery, cramp 
and curb the imagination? Why, whilst even British 
bards have sung the romantic legends of our aborigines, 
do not these scenes inspire our native authors ? 



26 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

These are not the causes of our inferiority. We must 
refer it in part to the laws so unjust to American author- 
ship, and beneficial to speculating publishers. Under the 
present system, an English author cannot obtain a copy- 
right for his work in this country, but immediately on its 
publication it is ready for any one to appropriate it to his 
own nse. And so eagerly is this done that in a short time 
from the announcement of its publication in England, it is 
issued as re-published from the American press. 

You might as well expect the honest mechanic to sell 
his hard wrought products, as soon as the thief that steals 
them, as to suppose that our authors are able to devote 
their time and talents to the pursuit of literature, while 
publishers have an opportunity of vending stolen trash to 
the public. The pursuits of literature perhaps more than 
any other require the devotion of the whole mind. The 
days of Chatterton and Tasso, would be re-acted in Amer- 
ica were our authors so to devote their time, and they 
would die in the garret, of absolute starvation, if indeed 
they were rich enough to afford one. We might hear of 
another genius like Tasso, writing sonnets to the eyes of 
his cat for the lustre they afforded him. Our literature 
held in check by such a weight, equal to that which old 
Atlas bore upon his shoulders, cannot be expected to exhib- 
it the richness and grace we fondly hope for. 

The moral consequences of such a system are enough 
to bring about its correction. In the mass of English re- 
publications, the vilest trash is poured forth on the commu- 
nity, and books are published, the very reading of which 
is enough to cast a blight on the morality of our land. 
Witness the thousands of works weekly issued : — examine 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 27 

their contents, and investigate their tendency. What are 
they but descriptions of polished vice, and high colored 
praises of refined profligacy, like highly tinted pictures, 
calculated to mislead the mass, and commanding from all 
but the wise louder applause than the more modest, but 
more natural productions of first rate artists. 

So much for the disease ; — now for the cure. Establish 
an international copy-right law, by which the English 
author can be defended from American publishers, and by 
so doing, we will but protect from unfair competition, our 
own authors, and give them a fair opportunity to display 
their native talents. Justice and our own advantage here 
go hand in hand, and while the former calls on us for pro- 
tection against legalized villainy, the latter loudly echoes the 
call, and adds to the considerations of justice. Let a just 
and equitable international copy-right law be put in opera- 
tion, and literature will then become an object of undivid- 
ed attention, and American travellers in foreign lands need 
no longer blush to hear it mentioned. It is considered 
proper to protect our manufactures, and nourish the rising 
germ of national enterprise : — why then not cherish o ur 
literature, in whose annals the actions of the present day 
are to be recorded. Let then these considerations be duly 
weighed, remove the weight from off the young shoulders 
of our literature, and England will soon discover that her 
blood has not stagnated in our veins, and she may soon 
learn to envy the fame of some American Shakspeare or 
Milton. 



DISSERTATION. 

American Biography. 

By Samuel C Damon, Holden. 

The time has come to collect the maierials for Ameri- 
can history. Family records, old libraries, and the pub- 
lic archives must be inspected, and their contents preserv- 
ed from decay. A national diary kept, sketches of indi- 
vidual character carefully delineated. Yes — American 
biography presents superior claimxS upon our attention, as 
one department of the nation's history. 

Its intrinsic excellence will now be shown. With 
some nations, the custom has been to deify their mighty 
dead, to rank their ancestors as equal with their gods ; 
and in their solemn temples they have not scrupled to pay 
divine honors to their memories. But no such claims do 
we urge for the subjects of American biography ; no deifi- 
cation shall they receive at our hands ; we grant them no 
equality with our God, and we shall rear for them no al- 
tars in the places of our worship- They were men — living, 
acting, reasoning men, like ourselves. As such, with a 
knowledge of their lives, and the fruits of their labors re- 
maining, a failure to give them a place in our history, 
would evince an utter destitution of every generous feel- 
ing. 

An event has not transpired since the first plans were 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 29 

projected in England, for peopling this country, which has 
not produced men fully adequate to the exigencies of the 
times; arid although the wild theorist and sordid specula- 
tor gave the first impulse to a system of colonial settle- 
ments; yet their movements were seconded by the sturdy 
yeomanry of Holland, England, and Scotland. The 
youthful graduates of Oxford and Cambridge esteemed it 
an honor to spend their years of vigorous manhood, in 
laying the foundations of civil and religious institutions, 
which should call into exercise the noblest feelings of our 
nature, and foster the growing energies of the youthful 
nation. 

Prodigal of our encomiums upon the men of those days, 
we are in danger of exhausting our fund of praise, before 
the claims of their immediate successors are examined. 
Signals so bright are planted at Jamestown, and Ply- 
mouth that other historical events are but dimly shadowed 
forth in the venerable chronicles of the past. The mind 
seizing upon these as starting points, does not stop for 
reflection until the grand and sublime scenes of the rev- 
olution bring under full contribution its mighty energies. 
Imagine not, however, that during a period of one hun- 
dred and fifty years, none arose worthy of our remem- 
brance — none who claim a notice from the faithful biogra- 
pher. Think not that a mere handful of enthusiastic ad- 
venturers, spread over a wide territorj?", increased in num- 
bers to three millions, and became thirteen regularly es- 
tablished colonies, without producing men worthy to be 
ranked among statesmen, philosophers and divines. 
America did produce generals, orators and statesmen, be- 
fore the days of Washington, Henry, and Jefferson, 
3 



30 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

These were the men who brought forth the top-stone of 
the temple of liberty amidst the universal shouting of a 
ransomed nation. But there were many beside w^ho laid 
its foundations and reared its w^alls. 

The biographies of the men to whom I have alluded 
are the nation's family record. They tell us of our fa- 
thers and grandsires. They point us to their birth places 
and to their graves'. They are purely American — for 
historians can make no mention of Flessian troops who 
fought our battles, of impressed seamen who manned our 
fleets, or of hireling orators, who defended our cause at 
home, or abroad. Plants, such as those our biographers 
describe, are indigenous to American soil alone : their 
growth and development needed, in addition to the mild- 
ness of our summer, the bracing w^inds of our winters and 
the driving blasts of the storms which sweep over the 
hills and through the vallies of New England. 

It is the memory of such men we would cherish — not 
by erecting statues of marble, for tbey may crumble, nor 
by chiseling their names upon blocks of granite, for these 
inscriptions may be effaced. But let their mouldering 
dust be m.ade to live again, by some American Plutarch, 
Avho shall give a simple narrative of their lives, to be read 
by their descendants. Well written biographies would 
form a chain that would bind the present to the past, and 
additional links would successively be joined until there 
should remain but one surviving representative of the 
nation who should bear the name, and claim the honors of 
an American Citizen, 



DISSERTATION. 

The influence of the Imagiyiation on Eloquence. 
By Charles H. Doolittle, Herkimer, N. Y, 

The imagination however lightly esteemed, exerts more 
or less influence over men in every variety of condition 
Every pleasing anticipation that flits across the mind en- 
couraging to action — the man trembling in vievt^ of the in- 
evitable consequences of his acts, or moved to pity by the 
suffering of fellow being — exhibits its power, especially 
over the great incitements to action, the passions and the 
feelings. This power of combination, of presenting what 
would, in reality, be the consequences of certain acts, 
it seems highly important for the Orator to regard. Not 
merely because it gives purity and sublimity to composi- 
tion ; but because it may disorganize the whole mind : for 
when left to play in v^^ikl luxuriance, it flees the judgment, 
and escaping from matters of real life, renders eloquence 
all but visionary, whicjh, like the morning dew lingering 
around the m.ountain's summit in rich and lovely beauty, 
vanishes at the first dawn of reason or truth. This re- 
minds the orator of its great influence over his own art, and 
of the necessity of its cultivation, that, while he escapes from 
the visionary, he may enrich his style with varied illustra- 
tions, and give it force by the strength they necessarily 
add. It has been thought to cultivate the imagination 
is to withdraw the mind from the influence matters of 



32 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

real life, are calculated to exert, to regale amid the sports 
of fancy, unfit for sober reality. But this exhibits a 
mistaken zeal, tending to destroy the true balance of the 
mind, which originates in a lack of sagacity and an ima- 
gination devoid of the requisite culture. When controlled 
by a sound judgment, and directed by an acute sagacity 
instead of exhausting itself in idle soarings, it lends wings 
to the mind and bears it away to remote conclusions. 
Transcending the limits of simple vision, on the principles 
of suggestion it may furnish the mind with new and impor- 
tant ideas. 

A great difference in eloquence may be traced to a dif- 
ference of feeling in the Orator. It is only when he feels 
the magnitude of his cause, and the inevitable consequen- 
ces, that his mind is the most rapid in its conceptions — it is 
then only that it transcends itself. ' Feel the subject the" 
roughly' was a precept given near a century ago, as the 
most essential to true eloquence, and is now recommended 
by its correctness. 

This is the influence the imagination exerts. Were 
man destitute of the power to unite conceptions of the past 
or past feelings, how little would the suiFerings, and op- 
pressions of others move him ! Those subjects, which of 
all others give scope for the most sublime eloquence, could 
not arouse the dormant energies of his mind. He is una- 
ble to raise his own mind and consequently fails to ef- 
fect, what the truly eloquent always will, an elevation 
of the mind. In cases of misfortunes, he must have the 
power of imagining the actual state of the case, that he 
may feel the full force of circumstances; and thus be ena- 
bled to present it in all its bearings. He must have a jus^ 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 33 

view of the present and consequent suffering ere he can 
burst forth in that deep toned eloquence, which sways the 
passions, and feelings of men. It is when, through 
the instrumentality of the imagination, his whole soul is 
kindled as ' with a live coal from off the altar,' that ^nq feel 
his power; it is then the sublime impassioned eloquence 
takes possession of our hearts, and carries with it the full 
current of our feelings, as well as the judgment ; for when 
the heart is warnied, and the passions excited, the judg- 
ment is affected with the greatest facility. 

On those occasions when liberty is just expiring amid a 
general apathy, when men are to be impressed with their 
danger, reanimated, and induced to action, what could 
the speaker accomplish without the ability to present the 
state of affairs — what would in reality be the results of cer- 
tain acts ?- Could he raise their minds above petty jealous- 
ies, that they might link together in the noble enterprise ? 
No, the power is not there. But it is on such occasions, 
that imagination gives to eloquence a soul-kindling fire, as 
the orator presents in view the several conceptions of the 
past, and paints with vividness the misery and remorse 
that awaits them. The Demosthenes of America drew co- 
piously from this source when he so happily kindled that- 
generous devotion to humanity and country, which has 
left for us inestimable blessings. This power has been 
exhibited by the great masters of eloquence in every age, 
and must be so cultivated by all who would excel in that 
art as to serve the high purpose for which it was crea- 
ted. In the splendid era of British Eloquence, the master 
spirits who lighted up the nation, by its aid brought 
truths nearer the minds of individuals, and adorned them 
3* 



3^ ■ COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

with greater energy. And it always gives fitness to elo- 
quence — an adaptation to the nature and circumstances of 
the case. Men may be told they should feel, they may be 
told that certain acts will terminate in a never ending 
pang ; yet looks will seem to indicate, that the speaker has 
given them an opiate. He must present that which will 
be reality so as to interest and make them feel. He must 
feel himself; for there is a sympathy between the speaker 
and his auditors. A want of interest, in the one, is met by 
a cold indifference, in the other, which, so far from exciting 
to action, dampens whatever of ardor existed. It it be the 
object of the orator to please, how can it be effected with 
greater facility than by addressing the imagination ? The 
beautiful creations of the imagination are far more pleas- 
ing to the minds of men than the harmony and beauty 
visible throughout creation. And when we recollect 
that the great business of the orator is to persuade, a hap- 
py influence of the imagination again beams upon this art; 
for when the mind is cheered, and that which is presented 
rendered attractive, the barrier, that too often intercepts 
persuasion, is swept away. There are tiiose who appear 
to think that the feelings and passions should never be mov- 
ed — men in- whom it would seem humanity had been di- 
vested of her brightest robes. The passions and feelings 
never to be exercised ! Are we then to warp the ima- 
gination, and keep suppressed every noble feeling in the 
auditors ? 

' As messenger of Morpheus, on them casts 

Sweet slombering deaw, the which to sleep them biddes.' 

No, the orator must touch the chords of his own heart, and 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 85 

summon the sympathies of his listeners to a responsive 
swell of harmony which pure reasoning never can awake, 
ere the queen of arts unfolds her charms and reigns victo- 
rious over the human soul. If, then, we would urge on 
our footsteps in the most sublime of acquisitions, let the 
imagination sway her sceptre unquestioned in her own — 
her beautiful dominions ! . 



ORATION. 

The Triumph of Truth. 

By Alvah G. Dunning, Enfield, N. Y. 

The universal prevalence of truth and her complete 
ascendancy over every antagonist principle is a result most 
ardently desired by all the virtuous and intelligent. But 
while we expect the glorious triumph of truth over all 
error, its progress has as yet been confined within narrow 
limits. 

Although a few pencils from the sun of truth, have, 
from the beginning, shed their cheering light upon our 
earth, yet the greatest portion of it has been wrapped in 
the shades of the thickest darkness. But this state of 
things is not always to continue. ' Truth is the represen- 
tation of things as they are.' It must therefore ultimately 
become universal. 

• Man loves knowledge, and the beams of truth 
More welcome touch his understanding's eye 
Than all the blandishments of soimds his ear 
Than all of taste his tongue.' 

It is easy to mark its progress in every department. In 
philosophy, consisting of physical and mental, the false 
systems with which truth has had to contend, have been 
as numerous as the pride, and the presumption of men 
could devise. She has already triumphed over many of 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. $7 

these systems, and others are fast disappearing before her 
light. Men are ever dispose'd to lay claim to knowledge : 
hence, before they could acquire, by observation and ex- 
periment a correct knowledge of the phenomena of nature, 
they invented hypotheses which bore at once the stamp of 
ignorance and presumption. Here was the prime and 
prolific source of all the errors which have distracted tjie 
philosophic world. This was the fountain whence sprung 
those fanciful theories respecting the eternal existence of 
molecular matter always floating about in the boundless 
regions of space and possessing antipathies and elective 
affinities. These theories exhibited the most extravagant 
forms and the greatest instability. Almost every philoso- 
pher had an hypothesis respecting the phenomena of ter- 
restrial and celestial bodies peculiar to himself One 
supposed that the stars were patches of clouds light- 
ed up in the night and extinguished in the morning — 
that there were many suns and moons, and that different 
climates were accommodated with distinct sets. The 
firmament, according to another, is an arch of stone, and 
the stars are stones whirled from the surface of the earth 
by the swift movement of the circumambient air, which 
set them on fire and gave them a circular motion. A 
third asserted that the stars were hot pumice-stones ori- 
ginally fixed in the sphere of the heavens, and serving as 
lamps in the night, but designed chiefly as breathing-holes 
of the world.- Others still affirmed that the sun was glob- 
ular and hollow, containing fire within, which produced 
light by streaming out through a cavity on one side. 
When this cavity was stopped the sun was eclipsed. But 
truth was destined to dispel all these and similar visionary 



38 COMMENCEMENT EXERC ISES. 

speculations. - It was her light which was to attract all 
eyes and eclipse all other systems. 

The first gleam of tiLitK with respect to celestial phe- 
nomena, was presented by the sagacious talents of Pytha- 
goras, four centuries before the Christian era. But the 
high honor of proposing the true theory of the planetary 
motions, accompanied with such arguments as should car- 
ry conviction to the understanding of the . intelligent and 
unprejudiced, was reserved for the Polish astronomer 
2000 years afterward. Since that period the boundaries 
of astronomical truth have been rapidly extended by the 
labors of Kepler, Newton, Laplace, and others. 

In other branches of" natural philosophy the success of 
truth has been equally brilliant. The Utopian schemes of 
transmuting the baser metals into gold, of discovering the 
elixir of life, of solving all possible problems by a wood- 
en machine, and writing poetry by the multiplication table, 
no longer stimulate the efforts, or excite the admiration of 
any who lay claim to common sense. — In mental science 
too, the progressive triumph of truth has been no less ex- 
tensive. The ethereal species, forms, shadows, and images 
of Aristotle, Plato, and their disciples have been dislodged 
by the talents of Reid and his successors, and exist only 
as the monuments of power, folly, and ignorance. The 
admission that the human mind is inadequate to the inves- 
tigation of final causes, cleared the way for the very rapid 
extension of scientific truth. Henceforth the intellectual 
telescope will be pointed, not to the discovery of objects be- 
low the horizon, but to those within the compass of vision. 

In moral philosophy, also, truth has gathered her lau- 
rels. The relations and consequent duties which exist be- 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 39 

tween individuals of the race were long shrouded in dark- 
ness and often falsely represented. The selfish inclina- 
tions of men were often taken as the measure of obligation. 
Integrity and truth were not always considered as indispen- 
sible to morality. The rays of truth in this science, at first 
few, and scarcely sufficient to mark the boundary between 
light and darkness, have been thickening till the eye 
can trace the lineaments of rectitude and moral beauty. 

In the science of government, truth has been gradually 
advancing in her conquests. The false systems which re- 
garded the subject as the slave of the government have 
given place to more enlightened and correct views. The 
ruler is beginning to be regarded no longer as a being of 
a superior nature, not amenable to human tribunals, but as 
a servant to whom is committed an important trust, and 
whose guilt is greatly enhanced if he is unfaithful in its 
execution. The truth has at length beamed on the world, 
that man vv^hen properly instructed is capable of self-gov- 
ernment, — that he is formed with faculties adopted to the 
control of reason — that he is not to be ruled by a savage, 
— that he has capacity to perceive, and discretion to pursue 
what relates to his own interest. 

The conquests which truth has gained in religion are 
the most glorious, and most worthy of consideration. 
Here the light of truth, at first obscure, has been constantly 
increasing, dispelling the mists of superstition and idolatry, 
and elevating the mind to the sublime principles of nat- 
ural and revealed religion. Revelation has been the prin- 
cipal instrument employed to lead on to victory in this de- 
partment of truth. To the Jewish lavv'giver was first en- 
trusted this heavenly instrument. By him was lit up the 



40 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

lamp of truth which has sent out its rays to distant regions. 
The clearness and intensity of this light was for more 
than twenty centuries steadily advancing, by means of the 
sacred declarations of the prophets, exposing the ialse doc- 
trines of those who made a pretence to superior wdsdom 
and sanctity. At last, all these scattered rays, which had 
glimmered on the earth since the creation of man, were 
collected and increased to a tenfold intensity by the Great 
Teacher of truth. The Apostles caught the light and 
scattered it rapidly among the nations. But soon truth 
was to experience a sad reverse. Her glory was eclipsed 
by the deep shadows of error. Long was her triumph 
impeded and her power restrained. But after the reign of 
a thousand years of the most ridiculous absurdities and 
and error, Luther and his coadjutors arose to lead her on to 
new victories. Her car rolled victorious over the necks of 
her foeSj and her power was great. Since that time the 
messengers of God have blown the trumpet of truth upon 
more than a hundred different keys. Her ultimate and 
complete triumph is written among the decreeg of the 
Holy One. Her victories shall multiply till every hypoth- 
esis shall be abolished. Then shall truth be the sovereign 
of intellect. The mind nourished by her quickening 
beams will expand and flourish like a plant enjoying the 
full influence of the sun after the refreshing of a summer's 
shower, 



DISPUTATION. 

Is the progress of knoioledge more indebted to genius 
than to the enthusiasm of common 7nind ? 

By Nathan Allen, Princeton. 

Lemuel N. Baldwin, Attvater, Ohio* 

In all that is splendid in the achievements of mind en- 
thusiasm is said to have had a principal agency. But 
vsrithout detracting one iota from its influence in connec- 
tion with common mind, we believe that, where enthusi- 
asm has contributed her thousand mites, genius has con- 
tributed her ten thousand to advance the progress of learn- 
ing ; and that this position can be established from the 
nature of the mind and the history of its operations. 

What makes the most important discoveries and im- 
provements in the world of matter and mind? What 
soars into the regions of unlimited space, and traces most 
successfully the laws and relations of the material uni- 
verse ? And what first penetrates the arcana of nature's 
works and discloses to an admiring world her long hid- 
den mysteries? Is it common mind ? No: it is more — it 
is lofty genius. And no amount of enthusiasm can com- 
pensate for a deficiency in intellect. Men of ordinary 
mind do not take the lead in the progress of knowledge. 

* The negative of this question was taken by Mr, Baldwin, but, 
owing to necessary absence, he did not participate in the exercises 
of Commencement. 



42 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

Its first principles lie above or below their reach, and 
some more daring spirits must ascend to convey them 
dov/n and adapt them to their capacities, or descend into 
the abyss below to bring up the gems and pearls. If not, 
these principles must remain forever concealed from the 
world. It is the prerogative of genius alone to create the 
spark — kindle the flame, and light up the pathway of suc- 
cessive generations. And a single discovery, or train of 
thought, will sometimes tell more in the advancement of 
learning than the combined labors of thousands. 

Where would have been the happiness, prosperity, and 
greatness of this nation, had not the adventurer of Genoa 
lived? And as we look back through the long vista of 
time, we find that a few such geniuses have been the 
mainsprings in aifecting the best interests of man, — that 
a few have given direction to^the feelings, thoughts, and ac- 
tions of the countless throng in every age and nation. 
In the origin and progress of every branch of learning, a 
few pioneers boldly issue forth — bring light to its first prin- 
ciples, and pave the way for a lower order of mind. And 
to whom belong the glory, and to whom are we most in- 
debted, if not to the first originating mind ? We natural- 
ly ascribe to genius nearly all the discoveries in the sci- 
entific Vv^orld, and justly too. For all science is founded 
on facts — facts, not as they exist in nature, but in thought — 
in the sentient mind. And it is not in the nature or pow- 
er of ordinary mind, however influenced by the glowing 
file of enthusiasm, to discover these facts — analyze them — 
draw such inferences and make such classifications as will 
establish the true and only true principles of a science. 
There must be some giant spirit to spy out the ground 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 43 

and lay out the work. This may be seen in the history 
of Astronomy, and what is true of this science is true of 
all. Who discovered its grand and sublime truths ? Are 
they the achievements of common mind? No. It requir- 
ed the genius of a Copernicus to pierce the veil of existing 
error — clear away the accumulated rubbish of ages and 
reach the sacred recesses of truth. It was only the gen- 
ius of a Newton and a Kepler, that could explore the 
penetralia of nature, and investigate her laws: — and of a 
Galileo, that could annihilate distance — build highways to 
the heavens, and extend the boundaries of science almost 
to infinity by his wonderful inventions. It seems a wise 
design of Providence that some master-spirits should 
arise at different periods in the world to remove mountain 
obstacles, and prepare materials of thought and labor for 
their own and succeeding generations. They have been 
the prime agents in bringing on the golden eras of Litera- 
ture and Science, and presided over them as guardian de- 
ities. And they have been burning and shining lights in 
ages and nations enveloped in more than midnight dark- 
ness. The immortal bard of Scio, and the unrivalled ora- 
tor of Athens, moulded the character of Greece, and exert- 
ed an untold influence on all her future history at home 
and abroad. And when the sun of liberty had been long 
'set in darkness in Rome, a man of genius arose, who gave 
birth not only to Italian, but to all European Literature. 
All our standard works, that have escaped the ravages of 
time and the wrecks of change and decay, bear indelibly 
engraved upon them the impress of genius. They con- 
stitute the great store-house of literature in all ages, and 
neither time nor space can limit their .influence. 



44 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

In all the great reforms and mighty revolutions that 
have changed the entire facfe of society, a few have mar- 
shalled the ranks and led on the way to coriquest and vic- 
tory. It was only the matchless powers of a Luther and 
a Knox that could break the death-like slumbers of Eu- 
rope, and kindle the torch of liberty on every altar. 
There must of necessity be some bold champions to rally 
the forces, and stand foremost in the glorious contests be- 
tween light and darkness, truth and error. Men of ordi- 
nary mind, inflamed by ardent enthusiasm, contribute very 
little efficient help to advance the progress of knowledge. 
They are like wandering stars or meteors, which dazzle 
for a tim-e, only to bewilder and blind their admirers when 
gone. But a man of genius is like the sun traveling in 
the greatness of his strength. It is in the lower regions of 
the atmosphere that the storms and elements rage : — above, 
where genius ranges unfettered, all is serene and prosper- 
ous. In the progress of knowledge, men of genius stand 
along at successive distances, and form, as it were, a gol- 
den chain which is carried on through all ages, and will 
forever connect the nations of the earth. 



ESSAY. 

Infidelity subversive of Civil Liberty. 

By Robert T. Conant, Bar re. 

There are certain elemeDts in man's moral constitutioii, 
which every one who aspires to the office and honor of a 
reformer should study with the utmost attention, if he 
would attain any other reputation than that of a rash ex- 
perimentalist, reckless of human happiness. Among these 
elements we find a principle' of mora] evil ever reigning 
in the heart of man. Prisons and chains, and ministers 
of vengeance armed with the sword in the cause of injur- 
ed justice, do but too clearly evince the truth of the declar- 
ation that ' the heart of man is fully set in him to do evil.' 
This is a fact so obvious to all, that no m.an practically dis- 
believes it. It is only y/hen charged upon himself, as ex- 
posing him to the fearful retribution of divine justice, that 
any one pretends to deny it. Nor is the fact that human 
law is altogether inadequate to check the violence and 
selfishness of man's nature less obvious. The fountain of 
evil it must leave forever untouched. It can detect onlv 
such crimes are capable of proof, and punish only such as 
it can detect. Again, 

' In the corrupted currents of this world, 
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice ; 
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself 
Buys out the law.' 

4* 



46 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

These defects make a fearful breach in the entrench- 
ments of human justice. Human law is limited in its 
operation. There is one department of man which it can- 
not reach: malice and revenge, envy and hatred, avarice 
and lust, are left to grow in the bosom undisturbed, and to 
pour forth their bitter waters without restraint. Litera- 
ture and philosophy may for a moment stay the tide of des- 
olation in its course, but soon these accumulated waters 
overleap these feeble barriers, and sweep them away like 
shreds of gossamer, or the chaff of the summer thrash- 
ing-floor, before the angry tempest. 

Religion alone furnishes a remedy for these evils. Tt 
points the offender to an eye that never sleeps. It opens 
to his view the book of Omniscience; — shows him the 
Almighty arm clothed with vengeance, and reveals the 
brow of eternal justice frowning on his ungodliness. It 
summons him to a court where 

' There is no shuffling, where the action lies 
In his true nature ; and we ourselves compelled, 
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 
To give in evidence.' 

Infidelity on the other hand, conceals the omniscient 
eye, the Almighty arm, and the glittering sword of justice, 
from the offender's view. Man is thus left free to run his 
own career, and anarchy like a ' wild deluge ' sweeps the 
land. 

It is a truth, which almost every page of history confirms, 
that immorality begets anarchy and confusion ; of which, 
despotic tyrrany is the legitimate offspring. Society must 
be deeply corrupted before the calm of social and civil 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 47 

life caD be disturbed by the storm of faction : — before those 
tumultuous and angry waves can rise on its surface whicfi 
bore a Nero, a Sylla, a Caligula to that eminence in cru- 
elty which shall render their names illustrious in the an- 
nals'of butchery and crime, so long as time shall last. 

I know full well that the world has often been amused 
with fables about a harmless and moral infidelity, whose 
gentle spirit, so far from disturbing the quiet of the nations, 
should, with kindliest touch, allay the angry ferment of 
passion, and give peace to a world long the scene of bloody 
strife. But as well might you talk of a tame and harm- 
less wolf, which, instead of devouring the flock, should 
watch it with a ' shepherd's care,' or of a hyena, with 
whose mane the child might play familiarly, or of a cock- 
atrice about whose den the infant might sport itself un- 
harmed. Such animals never were, and while nature's 
laws remain unaltered, never will be harmless. As often 
as ^olus, with inverted trident, pierces the cavern where 
the pent winds war and rage, so often will they rush forth 
and fill the earth with their uproar. In like manner, as 
often as the restraints which God's law imposes are re- 
moved, men's passions will burst forth, and the nations 
will be compelled to reap their natural fruit — 

' Oppression, slavery, tyranny, war : 
Confusion, desolation, trouble, shame.' 



DISSERTATION. 

Blind Admiration of Originoi Genius. 

By Wolcott Marsh, New Hartford, Ct. 

Wherever any extraordinary display of genius is 
made, thither are the curious eyes of men directed. The 
statesman and the scholar, the orator and the hero, the 
philosopher and the poet, each in his turn, like a blazing 
meteor, has been a mark for the world to look upon and 
admire. They love to soar in regions far beyond the 
bounds ordinarily prescribed to human thought, plucking 
new flowers from unfrequented ground, while the multi- 
tude, far in the plain below, are left to gaze with half- 
affrighted admiration upon the giddy height. 

But though few walk on these high places, and direct 
the movements of nations, holding in their hands the des- 
tinies of their fellow creatures, yet m.ost are capable of 
judging correctly of their excellencies, and are susceptible 
of real pleasure from the beauties of their productions. 
There is a string which vibrates to the sweet numbers of 
Homer and the thrilling eloquence of Demosthenes, 

Deserving, however, as are these favored ones of our 
regard — to load them with indiscriminate praises, and to 
yield them our unbounded admiration, is as servile as its 
consequences are fatal. 

It has a pernicious influence on the mind of the admirer 
himself. Forgetting that they are human, and therefore 
erring beings, he eagerly seizes every sentiment that falls 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 49 

from their lips, and, without examination, adopts it as his 
own. Thus his mind is rendered feeble, and averse to 
close investigation, through want of that discipline, and 
that independence of thought which it would otherwise 
acquire. 

Were men of genius always disposed to employ their 
powers for the benefit of their fellow men, the danger 
would be less. But how often do we find, in connection 
with illustrious talents, the most corrupt passions raging 
with unbridled fury. The most savage barbarity — an in- 
satiable thirst for blood — a deadly hatred to our race, are 
their frequ ent attendants ! We might suppose that vices 
so palpably gross need only to be seen to be abhorred, 
And so they would, unfolded by ordinary minds, But the 
dazzling splendor of genius blinds the eyes of many to 
the moral defects of its possessor, or throws around them 
so alluring a garb as to render them to some even attrac- 
tive. 

Thus Voltaire who had conceived the diabolical pur- 
pose of overturning the religion of Jesus, at first artfully 
concealed his main design ; — meanwhile dipping his pen 
in the fatal poison, and scattering far and wide his intoxi- 
cating pamphlets, to prepare the w-ay for the final over- 
throw. At length, as if urged on by demoniacal influence, 
a frenzied multitude from all parts of Europe flocked to 
his standard, inspiring hopes of a glorious triumph. 
Frederic IL king of Prussia, was for a time one of his 
most zealous co-operators. What, but a blind admiration 
of the genius of that heaven-daring man, could have indu- 
ced him to embark in so impious an enterprise — an at- 
tempt to ' Crush the Wretch,^ and to efface from the earth 
the last traces of a religion of which he knew little, and 



50 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

into the evidence of wliich he had never deigned to in- 
quire. ? 

Hume was another of like character with Voltaire — 
equally successful in gaining admirers, and corrupting 
them with sentiments equally pernicious. Alas ! how 
many have turned aside from the path of rectitude be- 
cause invited by a superior, who would have disdained 
to go with a meaner mind. 

Now, as in former times, at the appearance of uncom- 
mon geniuses, multitudes are ready to exclaim, ' The gods 
are come down in the likeness of men.' Like them, too, 
they are ready to do them homage, regardless alike of their 
vices and their virtues. Erecting their altars to unknown 
gods, it is not strange that they themselves are often the 
first to be immolated upon them. Many have been wafted 
on the breezes of popular favor to a tyrant's throne, to 
wield a tyrants sceptre ; and thus has the blind adoration 
of their menial subjects been richly rewarded. 

Yet while the blood is streaming before their eyes, and 
the cries of the oppressed are still ringing in their ears, 
these inconsiderate worshippers cannot withhold their 
praises. Bonaparte — because he ravaged the earth with 
fire and sword, and drenched it in human gore, to an ex- 
tent unparalleled in his own age — is forsooth, a genius, 
and must be held up by many to the admiration of a 
world. Avjay with such, fawning sycophants. Shall we 
grasp as gold every thing that glitters ? The sun daz- 
zles our eyes — shall we therefore say, it has no dark 
spots ? Genius does not exist in an unmixed state ; 
and when men shall have learned accurately to distin- 
guish and separate it from the baser materials with which 
it is alloyed, then, and not till'then, will these evils cease- 



ORATION. 

The Mutability of National Characteristics. 

By Loyal C. Kellogg, Benson, Vt. 

It is not the object of historical philosophy to attract 
the fancy or charm the imagination. The endless series, 
of revolutions which have marked the various chapters in 
the chronicles of time occured for a different and nobler 
purpose. History is worthy of attention only as it tends 
to enlighten the intellect and elevate the heart. The spec- 
tacles, exhibited by the records of the past, of the decay of 
genius and power,— of the achievements and fortunes of 
ambition, — and the vicissitudes of empires, will attract and 
detain even the common eye, but in the view of the philos- 
opher they are invested with the most solemn and impres- 
sive lessons of practical and moral utility. 

The prejudices which fix our attention upon the fortunes 
of earthly. splendor are deeply seated in our nature. We 
are bound to the past by the beautiful morality of our reli- 
gion. The intellect, casting its eye over the broad sweep 
of its past exertions, becomes acquainted with its own great- 
ness, and rejoices in the consciousness of its immortality. 
Antiquity is a principal source of knowledge : "'. 

' Far in her realm withdrawn 
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom, 

And glorious ages gone, 
Lie deep within the shadow of her womb.' 



52 COMMENCE MENTEXERCISES. 

The retrospect of the past consults the nobler nature of 
man, and enables him to extend the brief duration of his 
own existence, for it crowds whatever was real in departed 
excellence or viciousness within the compass of his earth- 
ly thoughts and sympathies. It widens the horizon of the 
philosopher, for it s.preads before his eyes a boundless 
prospect of the wisdom and perfections of an overruling 
and divine Providence. 

The progressive changes of national characteristics in- 
volve the examination of the condition of society as it nas 
appeared in the different ages of the world. The shad- 
owy recollections of the traditional periods furnish all that 
is known of the rude state of mankind before the times 
of written history. The operation of the principles of 
war and dissension gathered men into communities, and 
the necessity of protection gave an origin to forms of gov- 
ernment. Civil society was founded on the animosities of 
war and national rivalry. The establishment of interest 
and property formed habits of industry, and encouraged 
the arts which are necessary to the accommodation of hu- 
man life. From such a humble origin arose the institutions 
and practices which have contributed so essentially to so- 
cial security and individual happiness. The early condi- 
tion of most of the nations of antiquity is very imperfectly 
known, for their history is overspread with a darkness al- 
most impenetrable. We have satisfactory evidence, how- 
ever, that they became the sport of the usual revolutions, 
and were swept out of existence by the common flood of 
national casualties. 

The changes of national character may be best illustrat- 
ed by referring to the history of the two republics of anti- 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 53 

quity to which the eye of the scholar ever turns with rev- 
erence and delight. Greece, the land of mighty men, 
majestic amid the ruins of its magnificence, allures us, by 
the recollections of the past and the exhibitions of the 
present, to the solemn reflections with which time has in- 
vested its history. Its petty tribes, in their progress to 
civilization, become powerful states. For the rudeness of 
the pastoral ages it insensibly substitutes the graces of the 
most polished refinement. The darkness of ignorance is 
dispelled by the light of knowledge. Its forms of govern- 
ment are established upon more enlightened principles, and 
the influence of its republics is stamped upon the mind of 
all succeeding ages. Its national partialities and the 
brilliant exploits of martial prowess inspire the enthusiasm 
of the poet and the orator. The mild influence of the 
prevailing philosophy refines the fierceness of passion, 
and society, though it has assumed an artificial appearance, 
is as I|eautiful and vigorous as in the times of its early 
simplicity. But with the blessings of civilization come 
also its curses. Wealth introduces luxury and all its at- 
tendant evils. A corrupt mythology removes all the bar- 
riers which close the heart to the infection of vice, and 
plunges all classes of society into the black gulph of mor- 
al debauchery. The public spirit is enervated, — public 
morals are relaxed, and the general depravity hastens the 
national downfall. The days of its glory have passed 
away. All that was perishable of its fame became extinct 
with its political existence. Yet, the elegance and taste of 
its arts, the loveliness of its literature, and the manliness 
of its oratory still remain. Greece is a brilliant name 



54 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

upon the page of history-j and its fate is awfully — sublime- 
ly instructive. 

Scarcely less interesting- are the different changes in the 
annals of Roman society. How few of the institutions of 
Numa survived to the times of Justinian ! — and those, how 
modified by experience ! New motives of conduct and 
new forms of government established and subverted difier- 
ent features of national character. That virtue "which ex- 
tended the conquests of Rome from the Euphrates to the 
Rhine was destined to be buried in the common profliga- 
cy. The nation w4iich once claimed to be mistress of the 
world sunk, in its turn, from its high estate into a condi- 
tion of the most profound degradation. All that was no- 
ble in the institutions of society, — all that contributed to 
its grace and happiness, was submerged in the general 
overthrow. The simplicity of its republicari' origin was 
lost in the splendors of the empire, and these again were 
vailed in the dark shroud of barbarism. All that remains 
to the children of Romulus of the most magnificent mon- 
ument of greatness ever raised by human hands is com- 
prised within the limits of a petty state in Italy. 

The mind, as it contemplates the ruins of the old orders 
of society and government, is filled with astonishment and 
admiration. The mutability of national characteristics 
displays in strong relief the vindication of the eternal 
principles of morality and religion. The designs of 
Providence are not to be mistaken. Wisdom and virtue 
are as essential to the success of national as of individual 
character. It reminds us of the vanity of earthly gran- 
deur when acquired upon any other foundation than that 
of rectitude and wisdom. Go and ask of History — the 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. ■ 55 

oracle of the past — where are the kingdoms which once 
gave laws to the world, — the throne of the Caliphs, — the 
empire of the Carlovingians, — the sceptre of Napoleon? — 
And her solemn response shall be :-^' they slumber in the 
sepulchre of nations.' It teaches us the nature of true glory. 
What is the name which Sesostris and the Pharaohs have 
inscribed in history compared with that which belongs to 
the quiet and peaceful Ptolemies ? Which is most endur- 
ing — the fame of the warrior or that of the lawgiver ? 
Which commands the most admiration among men, — which 
is most endeared to our hourly thoughts, — a character dis- 
tingaished only by greatness or one which combines both 
goodness and greatness ? It enables us to affix a proper 
value to the institutions which adorn our social state, for 
it reminds us that they have resulted from the experience 
of suffering and sorrowing humanity for a long series of 
ages. It opens to us new and solemn duties, for it associ- 
ates in our minds the loftiest contemplations of philanthro- 
py and piety. 

In all circumstances of life, whether in the administra- 
tion of public affairs or in the discharge of social duties' 
we are indissolubly -connected with the future, — we are 
compelled to act for eternity. Nothing could so feelingly 
make us tremble for the future destiny of our native land 
as the fortunes of the empires of antiquity. We are sur- 
rounded by the time-honored witnesses of the past. They 
point out to us, by their impressive experience, the perils 
we must encounter. Notwithstanding the dangers which 
are thickening around our path, we will not despair of the 
republic. We will not divorce liberty from the restraints 
and the protection of the law. We will not sacrifice it on 



56 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

the altars which have been builded by the virtues of our 
fathers. It influences are dear to us, for we owe to them 
all the blessings of life. Let us impress upon them a per- 
fection and durability unknown to the history of the past : 
— let the fabric of civil society be supported by the majes- 
tic pillars of piety and patriotism, and thus a state of chas- 
tened freedom shall be incorporated with the very exist- 
ence of time. 



ORATION. 

The Ho7ne of Ge7iius. 

By Roswell D. Hitchcock, East Machias, Me. 

Genius has its years of infancy. Culture gives it the 
power to captivate and chain us. There may be the same 
burning passion kindling alike its earlier and its later pro- 
ductions, there may be the same nervous feeling ; time 
and- study bring along a manlier strength — cool, far- 
reaching thought — tempered, yet intenser passions. There 
are powers rich in promise, there are sensibilities which a 
touch will thrill, there is a soul of fiery make and high 
resolve; there must belong and weary years of study, 
there must be labor which wastes the strength, and care 
which drinks up the spirits. Uncultivated genius is like 
the slumbering electricity of scattered clouds — they Hoat 
above but do not startle us ; the winds must drive them 
together and give the lightning birth. 

Nothing without toil — is the law of heaven, stretching 
alike over the empire of matter and of mind. It is a law 
which regulates our mental being. We must not over- 
leap it. Nature and the history of the past teach us that 
the mind and heart must undergo a training. There are 
circumstances peculiarly favorable to the developement of 
the intellectual powers ; these constitute the school of 
Genius. 

It is a fact, not to be forgotten, that the mind has not ex- 

5* 



58 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES.- 

panded equally well in every quarter of the globe, and un- 
der every form of government. It has been a matter of 
no trifling moment whether the orator was free or mana- 
cled — ^born in a temperate or a torrid clime. There are 
suns too hot, there are winters too rough, despotisms too 
grinding, for the highest perfection of our nature. With 
such a climate and such scenery as this land has, what 
hinders it from becoming the home of Genius ? Look 
abroad upon these United States, stretching like a broad 
belt of light from the vast Atlantic to the vaster Pacific, with 
giant mountains piercing the heavens, with floods of wa- 
ters rolling to the ocean, with thundering cataracts tum- 
bling from their giddy heights ; — it is, it is the noblest land 
for thought which God has made. 

In childhood we loved nature for her own beauties : — how 
much warmer is that love when we feel that all these glo- 
ries were fitted up for the education of immortal minds. 
There v/as always beauty in that bow painted on the bo- 
som of the cloud ; now it is doubly beautiful, for it puri- 
fies and exalts the feelings. That summer sun-set has 
been richer than ever, since it taught us to think of life as 
wasting, and counselled us to spend it so virtuously that a 
golden light might linger thus about its close. We love 
the first gray twilight of morning, because it stirs new 
thoughts within us. And, at night, when the stars come 
out one by one in the deep blue vault, we drink in rich 
lessons of celestial wisdom. The rushing of the ocean- 
storm was always grand, but how much more so when 
we learnt to mingle with its blasts the restless breathings 
of the soul. Who, that has been thrilled and staggered by 
the dark power of Schiller's tragedies, has not thought 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 59 

how much he learned, when in his boyhood he once stole 
away to watch the lightning-, till his soul sent forth flash- 
es as fitful and as strong as those which rent the air. 
The greatest intellects of every age have been those who, 
casting aside the descriptions of earlier thinkers, have 
gone forth to receive their own impressions ; they have 
studied nature in storm and in sunshine till the mind 
within has answered back to the calls of the world with- 
out. In America, with scenery majestic in itself and sa- 
cred in its associations. Genius is yet to dwell. 

Perhaps thought and feeling are guided by nothing so 
much as by government and religion. With mild lavirs 
and a pure religion w'e can bear up manfully against the 
physical obstacles to our success. The soil and situation 
may not be iavorable — the climate may be enervating; we 
will call to mind, that the land of the Ptolemies, now trod 
by an ignoble race, was once the abode of civilization and 
the arts, with the same blazing suns, the same deserts hem- 
ming it in. Give us freedom, and we can take the poorest 
gifts of Heaven, and use them for pur good ; make us 
slaves, and we sink dowm nerveless and dispirited. Hope- 
less servitude inflicts a withering curse ; it destroys even 
the last energies of despair. The states of antiquity gave 
birth to philosophers and orators because they were Re- 
publics, and though the populace were fickle, there was a 
spirit, pervading their courts and their senates, which 
awed the haughtiness of power, though it could not al- 
ways stay the violence of the people. But where is the 
record of a nation which has risen to eminence beneath a 
lawless sway? There may have been individual men, 
but they were scattered and solitary, like things of life up- 



60 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

on a desert. There is in man that natural indolence — 
that tendency to inaction, which requires that, at least, the 
arm of civil power should not be outstretched to persecute. 
Political excitement has calledf orth the noblest exer- 
tions of human intellect. The spirit of reform bursts 
open the senate house, puts the orator in his place, and 
the arches, at first taught to echo suppliant tones, noAV 
send back the stirring notes of patriotism. It was, so 
here ; it was so in England and on the continent. Mira- 
beau, the greatest orator of France, was, no less than Na- 
poleon, the creature of the Revolution. The latter snatch- 
ed the diadem of the Bourbons, and it became as starless 
on his brow as the iron crown he wore beyond the Alps. 
The former was the fiercest spirit in the council chamber — 
the terrible champion of a reckless liberty. He remem- 
bered that 

' Th' aspiring youth, that lir'd the Ephesian dome. 
Outlives, m fame, the pious fool that rear'd it.' 

And with a desperate ambition did he push up the engines 
which were to level the monarchy. 

The spirit of our Revolution called out orators whose 
names shall live long after the tide of centuries will have 
swept away the institutions that now exist. If men are 
ever eloquent, it is when, standing over the graves of their 
sires, they plead to avert a vassalage more bitter than 
death. Add to this the high motives drawn from our reli- 
gion, enforcing, as it does, a pure morality, making cer- 
tain an immortality which the boasted philosophy of 
Greece, in its highest reachings, did but hope for ; and 
you have that which alone could have lifted Plato and 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 61 

Socrates entirely above the gross mythology of their coun- 
trymen — that which would have given Genius a more last- 
ing abode. Need it be said that this is the best land for 
intellectual greatness which the sun has yet smiled upon? 
Here is a climate to invigorate, here are laws to fling 
around us a sacred protection, and Christianity to teach us 
the dignity of our nature. The last seventy-five years 
have been a proud era in the history of mind ; it has been 
made so by the spirit of political reform. The voices of 
our early orators died not with the tumult of those angry 
times ; they went pealing across the ocean, and are now 
breaking in fearful tones wherever man wrongs his fel- 
low-man ; they caused Ireland to start as at the loved 
voice of her own Grattan ; they cheered on Greece to rear 
amid her classic ruins a new Republic ; they called on 
Poland to hang out her banner, once more, on the battle- 
ments of Warsaw, though it might be but to mark out her 
grave. Standing on the shore of the Atlantic, you may 
soon hear the thunder of battle mingling with the voice of 
the tempest, as it sweeps in its might across the waters ; 
then will the spirit of freedom give Genius a home in ev- 
ery land. 



ORATION. 

Taste as connected loith Natio7ial Character. 

By Alfred B. Ely, Monson. 

We are indebted for our knowledge of character to the 
connection subsistino- between the various affections of the 
human mind. Such are the reciprocal relations of the 
mental qualities, that, by our intimacy with one, we seem 
to be introduced to an acquaintance with the rest. And 
mark, — in the single developements w^e may study the 
traces which distinguish the general character. 

Of this principle, the faculty of taste furnishes a 
most beautiful exhibition. It is, at once, the eye, the ear, 
the tongue, and the hand of the mind. It fills out the dim 
outlines which the imagination and fancy have conceived, 
and presents in a tangible form the creations of the intel- 
lect. It is the mirror in which the mind delights to view 
itself, and in which, if rightly applied, we may see its pe- 
culiar features distinctly traced. And this power of indi- 
cation is by no means confined to individuals. The same 
criterion will apply, and with equal force, to communities. 
The peculiarities of a nation's character, as in individuals, 
manifest themselves mos: clearly in the peculiarity of its 
taste, which adapts itself chamelion-like to the different 
fluctuations of society, and hcL.^u constitutes a faithful in- 
dex of its distinguishing traits. 



m 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 63 

In illustration of this point, we might go back to the 
remotest ages of antiquity, and follow the history of na- 
tions up to the present time. We shall invariably find the 
taste accommodating itself to the times. While in the sav- , 
age state of a nation's infancy, its features are of a coarse, 
uncultivated kind; — as civilization advances, they become 
more regular and refined, until true knowledge, in an en- 
lightened community, raises the standard of purity and 
correctness. There are people whose national character, 
like some stagnant pool in the deep glen of the mountains, 
has remained undisturbed and unaltered by the commo- 
tions of time. The Chinese, who live, think, and act as 
did their fathers ages ago ; — the Hindoos, with their never- 
ending distinctions of caste; — the wandering Arab, whose 
hand is against every man, and every man's hand against 
him ; and the bearded Turk, with his turban and Alcoran, 
meeting every thing with the well known cry of Allah-il- 
Allah. With such, taste has never varied; innovatioHj 
were it only dreamed of, would be sin. The same beaten 
path must be trodden, and with the same ideas of beauty 
which centuries before were cast and stereotyped. 

But let us look at those communities Avhich have exhibit- 
ed constant fluctuations in character and taste, for a more 
perfect illustration of the principle that taste is a test of 
national character. The simple ballads of the itinerant 
story-teller, and the songs of the hereditary bard, so com- 
mon in the infancy of our race, indicate a people just 
merging into childhood, wild, rough, and uncultivated ; 
but noble, generous, and promising future greatness. Look 
at the nations during the dark ages, when superstition 
ruled, with an iron rod, the minds of men, and the taste 



64 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

for the abstruse absurdities of their philosophers, — the 
monkish legends and superstitious lore of their ghostly- 
fathers plainly marks their character. Then turn to the 
chivalrous nations of the east and south of Europe, at the 
time when the gentle lover and fierce warrior were synon- 
ymous, — when a smile from ruby lips was a sufficient in- 
citenient to deeds of daring and death, and the approval of 
sparkling eyes was the highest reward. And here also 
their tastes will tell their character. Adopting the beauti- 
ful phraseology of the biographer of Milton, their delight 
was in * the spirit stirring joust and tournament, the stream- 
ing of gonfalons, the glitter of dancing plumes, the wail- 
ing of barbaric trumpets, and the sound of the silver clari- 
on.' ' Tales of chivalrous emprize, of gentle knights that 
pricked along the plain, the cruelty of inexorable beauty, 
and the achievements of unconquerable love,' recited in 
the plaintive ditties, and martial songs of the gallant Trou- 
badours, comprised their literature, and indicated what they 
were. A depraved taste for the licentious, and wanton in 
writing, the pert and flippant in wit, the double-entendre 
and obscene jest in conversation, and the seducing, volup- 
tuous address, plainly discovers the dissolute court and 
people of the second Charles ; while on the contrary, lofty 
principles, puritanical precision in manner, and a stern 
rigidity in all things, marked the time of Cromwell. 

Classical recollections would lead us to glance at Italy. 
But the days of her intellectual greatness have passed away. 
We see only the ruins of the old Roman mind. Its stern 
decision, its lofty energy, and commanding dignity, have 
departed. Trifling, indolence, and treachery, have usurp- 
^j <:i>o,v r^iopo nnd the -nponlo 1-^.-^ fj^g abject slaves of pas- 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 65 

sion. Hence, also, there has been a change as it regards 
the national taste. — The line arts, of which Italy has long 
and justly been considered the great school and center of 
perfection, now constitute her highest boast. But an ex- 
clusive cultivation of these elegancies by no means indi- 
cates intellectual greatness. They require ardent feelings 
and a quick and glowing imagination, but they foster not the 
loftier and more dignified traits of character. These, from 
misuse, soon totter and decay. But the taste of the Ital- 
ians, even in this respect, is not what it once was. The 
chaste and noble simplicity of the ancient masters has 
sunk into comparative neglect, while the sensual and vo- 
luptuous, attract a crowd of eager admirers. Here also 
we may read the chtiracter of the nation, indellibly stamp- 
ed upon the taste of the people. 

At the present day, however, in enlightened communi- 
ties, there is no surer index of a nation's character than 
the style of its literature. The time has been, (until re- 
cently), when men of education, and talents, exercised a 
kind of sovereignty in the literary world. Legitimate mas- 
ters of the press, they have controlled and measured out 
the intelligence of the people, while at the same time, 
they were entirely free from any re-acting influence of 
their inferiors. But as general information has increased, 
and books have multiplied so as to constitute no inconsid- 
erable article of traffic, the tables have turned. The ruler 
is now to be ruled, and the reader dictates to, and controls 
the writer. Books have come under the regular laws of 
trade, and the author, like the manufacturer, must produce 
such a commodity as his readers will receive. Says the 
author of Saturday Evening, * Our modern literature has 
6 



66 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

One Reason, and of this reason the buyer is the sovereign, 
the vender tl)e interpeter, and the writer the slave.' 

Literary works, produced under such circumstances, 
cannot indeed but be ephemeral ; they will pass away with 
the spirit of the age, but this very circumstance renders 
them a surer index of its character. 

The reciprocal influence of taste upon national charac- 
ter, demands a moment's consideration. The different 
qualities of the mind are so intimately, and as it were sym- 
pathetically connected in their operations, that no one can 
be affected independently of the rest. Although it may 
depend for the state of its developement upon the general 
character, still it will exert a re-acting influence propor- 
tioned to its exercise. Thus the taste of any people is re- 
flected back, in its influences, upon themselves, silently 
and imperceptibly modifying their character, and sowing 
the seeds of change. 

The effects of that meretricious taste for the fine arts 
which is creeping into many of our cities, is already begin 
ning tobefelt, — breaking through the barrier of decency and 
spreading a demoralizing influence over society. The 
taste for the light and evanescent productions of modern 
literature, — the fee-fo-fum of the press, so common at the 
present day, cannot but exert an injurious influence. It 
crowds out works of a more elevated character, and not 
only fails to store the mind with useful knowledge, but 
tends to fritter away the little common sense nature may 
have given. — There are however indications of a better 
state of things, there are many burning lights which beam 
out upon the darkness ; and the increase of general intelli- 
gence and the favorable reception of works of a weightier 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 67 

and more lasting kind seem harbingers of a purer, health- 
ier taste. 

The character of our own nation bears upon its face 
the elements of excitement. With the great waters it is 
stirred by every breeze of popular commotion. And, in 
agitation, ' like the troubled sea its waters cast up mire and 
dirt.' In the scum and impurities which rise and over- 
spread the surface of the seething mass, many read the 
prophetic monitions of speedy dissolution. But who, 
from the discolored foam, shall say that gems of a pure, 
and never-fading lustre are not imbedded in the unfathom- 
ed depths ? Who shall affirm, that there is not that be- 
neath which no mind can reach, but which, unmoved, and 
clear as the crystal rock, shall endure forever. 



ORATION. 

3?he obligations of Genius to Comm.on Minds. 

By David Andrews, Declham. 
<&- 

Hitherto the presumption has been, that the widen- 
ing circle of knowledge is indebted for its increasing ex- 
tension, to some great concentration — some burning inten- 
sity of intellect. Genius, in the creed of many, is the 
gre.at central orb, which has emitted every ray of light, 
that has gleamed on our pathway in science and literature. 
There have always been an idolized few, whom succeed- 
ing generations have extolled as the benefactors of the 
race: Poetry has wound her wreaths around their brows, 
and the historic muse has trumpeted their fame to poster- 
ity, while the pall of forgetfulness has been drawn over 
the humbler operatives, employed in laying the founda- 
tions, and building up the walls of the great temple of 
truth, which Genius has set off with her stucco and frieze- 
work, and around which she has erected her imposing 
colonnades. 

But the day is coming for the impartial adjustment of 
the claims of the different orders of mind for the agency 
each has exerted in the great cause of mental illumination. 
Time — the great advocate of truth — begins to disclose the 
fact, that the superior orders of intellect are greatly in ar- 
rears to mediocrity of talent ; that modern genius is well- 
nigh an insolvent debtor to ancient; and this, again, to 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 69 

common minds. Look into any of the most lauded pro- 
ductions of modern times and you will find them decked 
with gems which have glittered in other attire. 

If we glance at the single department of poetry — the 
art, which in early times operated as such a powerful an- 
tagonist to the sway of ignorance and barbarism, we shall 
find that it has ever made its home with the common peo- 
ple. They have not only been its patrons, but many num- 
bered among them have been the favored ones of the muses. 
The sons of the classic land of song, if they did not all 
chant to the lyre, had an ear to listen to the flowino- melo- 
dies of the bards ; else the Iliad and the Odyssey could not 
have survived until some kind hand gave them a form for 
perpetuity. Fame, indeed, crowns Scio's Bard as the 
' Prince of Poets ; ' but his great genius was but the con- 
centration of many lesser ones which shone out before his 
sjun arose. Before Aim,- lived a Linus, a Eumolpus, and a 
Melampus. Before him, poetry had her sanctuaries m the 
villas, which spotted hill and dale in Thessaly. Before 
him, Parnassus was inhabited, and Helicon's waters began 
to flow. Who can doubt that there was many a son of 
Apollo, >who 'swept the lyre' in that chivalrous army, 
which could war ten long years around the city of Priam 
for one woman ? — a species of errantry far surpassing even 
that of the days of the Troubadours. It v/as the same 
prevalent spirit which personified virtue and piety in the 
form of a Hercules, and endowed him with super-human 
powers. 

The same reciprocal influence has been exerted between 
the higher and lowei orders of mind in late — as in earlier 
times. What was the mind of Milton but a great mirror 
6* 



70 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

which reflected the converging rays that fell upon it from 
a myriad of lesser intelligencies ? It was the great mag- 
azine of the literary lore of all anterior ages. Shakspeare 
felt the moulding influence of a Chaucer and a Ben Jon- 
son, Their numbers were his cradle-songs. He not only 
strolled over the plain of Pharsalia, and saw where Pom- 
pey was shorn of his glory — stood at the tomb of CEesar, 
and beheld where he had wrested from him his sceptre, — 
he not only took a school-boy ramble while the dew of his 
youth was on him amongst the stupendous relics of Egyp- 
tian folly, — but he was nursed amidst ballads and ballad 
singers. It was here, that his rising genius received its 
bias. It was here, that his taste was formed and his fancy 
took its wing. His aliment was that very species of poet- 
ry — the natural product of the common mind — which 
gathers up the interesting incidents of domestic life and 
juvenile love, and dresses them out in the fascinating dra- 
pery of song. Burns too, though an erratic genius, was 
the common pro-perty of the Scots. They made him what 
he was, sung his lays, and still kindle over his sentiment- 
ality. 

Would time permit, we might speak of the aid many of 
the arts and sciences have derived from mediocrity of 
talent. We might show the obligations of philosophy to 
the same grade of intellect — proud Philoso-phy, which has 
often been as far elevated above nature and fact — her pro- 
per sphere — as Zenith is above Nadir. In this province 
she has gathered her facts ; and it has been by a reference 
to common sense, that her errors have been corrected. 
How was Philosophy recovered from the ridiculous vaga- 
ries of the schools, benighted under a cloud of their own 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 71 

misty images, forms, and phantasms 7 How was she 
brought back from her wild wanderings, when the sophis- 
tical Hume caught up the Berkleian method of reason- 
ing, and applied it to mind as well as matter, thus attempt- 
ing to break down the dike, and inundate us with a flood 
of scepticism? It was by, Reid's simple statement of the 
fundamental laws of common belief; — by insisting, upon 
w^hat is the resistless conviction of every man in his sober 
senses, that the objects of sensation are real entities, and 
net airy phantoms floating about the mind. 

Ever since the spirit of freedom asserted her claims 
amongst the powers, that have divided the empire of the 
world, she has found her most unblenching advocates in 
the middle classes of society. These have asserted, and 
defended Heaven's high behest against lawless oppression, 
while the titled and the great have been subservient to 
crowns and sceptres. Trace to their source the principles 
which have secured for us, what words cannot express?, 
but v^hat our hearts feel, and our 'eyes see all around us, 
and you will find that they originated in those stormy 
times under the reign of Henry VIH, and his successors, 
when the waves of persecution beat hard against the Pu- 
ritans. It was among these, of whom the land was not 
worthy, that the voice was afterwards heard, saying ; 
' Arise, let us depart ; for the spirit of liberty has no rest- 
ing place here.' Taught lessons of wisdom in the school 
of adversity, these patient yet dauntless adventurers in the 
cause of freedom did 'depart;' they raised their banner 
on these hills in the name of Him, who had hitherto been 
the right arm of their defence. And when they found 
that the monster which they had once fled, did not sleep, 



72 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

but was active against them, and a blow was to be struck, 
that should save a nation, it was the voice of a multitude 
echoing along these shores, in these valleys, and over these 
hillSj concentrated and poured forth in tones of thrilling 
eloquence by the Otises, the Adamses, and the Henrys of 
that day, which gave tension to nerve, and sinew for the 
execution. It is to the common sentiment of an honest, 
intelligent yeomanry at the dawn of the revolution * Let 
us brake the yoke of the oppressor,' that we are indebted 
for the full tide of prosperity upon which we are now float- 
ing. Jefferson was not the author of that celebrated in- 
strument — our Declaration ; it is but this common senti- 
ment gathered up, and drawn out in legible propositions. 
Such has been the influence of a grade of intellect hith- 
erto but little estimated in casting the relative proportions 
of merit due to the benefactors of mankind. Why then 
should a few ' Homers in Poetry, Bacons in Philosophy, 
or Washingtons even in ' freedom's holy war' share all our 
encomiums, while the less pretending, who have acted an 
equally important part in Time's great drama, are suffered 
to sink into the grave of oblivion? Let us remember our 
debt of gratitude to these, while we burn our incense at 
the altars of Genius. 



DISPUTATION. 

The comparative infiueiice of severe and commendatory 
criticism on the cause of literojture. 

By James C. Bryant, New Boston, N. H, 

Against critics there has long existed a violent preju- 
dice. By some they have been regarded as morose mis- 
anthropes, possessing no sympathy with their fellow 
man — as a race of literary harpies, prowling about the 
press, rioting in the ruin of individual character and tri- 
umphing with fiendish joy over a fallen foe. To escape 
such false and malicious representations — to avoid the un- 
bounded malediction heaped upon them in the faithful dis- 
charge of their duties, critics have adopted a course of 
more than questionable utility— that of conferring upon 
authors almost indiscriminate commendation. 

Intellectual as well as physical power can be attained 
only by vigorous and protracted exercise. Man, naturally 
indolent, must be stimulated to exertion. His slumbering 
energies must be excited to action. Mind must be brought 
into contact with mind ; and scintillations of genius are 
always brightest when the percussion is most severe. 
The oak, rising in solitary grandeur upon the mountain's 
brow, owes its strength to the rocking tempest, and the 
winds of winter that whistle through its leafless branches. 
And he who, from some lofty eminence in the intellectual 
world, can discern far below him those who were once 



74 COMMENCE MENTEXERCISES. 

his competitors, may often ascribe his superiority to those 
obstacles which once clustered around his path, threaten- 
ing to arrest his progress at every step. 

Severe criticism furnishes the stimulus demanded by 
the intellectual constitution of man. The fire which con- 
sumes the dross, at the same time purifies the gold. And 
if criticism falls upon some writings with scorching, with- 
ering power, the works of real genius come from the or- 
deal purified and refined — shining with new beauty and 
lusture. From severe criticism the man of high attain- 
ments has much to hope and nothing to fear. If with an 
energy self created and self sustained, he can rise above 
the circle where meaner minds revolve, and soar 
through untrodden fields of thought and imagination, this 
will secure to him the sole enjoyment of his own well 
merited honors. If a fiery sword guards the passages to 
the temple of fame, the same weapon is a sufficient guar- 
antee of undisturbed possession, to all who press forward, 
surmount obstacles and enter the gates. 

The literature of the present day demands severe and 
faithful criticism. A history of American authors would 
be little more than a disgusting recital of abortive attempts 
to produce som.ething which should survive its author 
A few; works, it is true, still live. They will survive the 
ravages of time and bear the names of their authors down 
to posterity, to be crowned with fresher glories each suc- 
ceeding age. But where are the multitudes who expected 
to immortalize themselves by writing without study, and 
composing without thought? Where are those produc- 
tions which were fondly expected to triumph over the des- 
olations ot time and pour their effulgence down the vista of 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 75 

coming years ? The monamental marble will tell all that 
is known of the authors ; but no monument marks the 
spot where their works are thrown to moulder into airy 
nothingness. The current of oblivion has borne them 
away ; and happy for American literature, should a re- 
fluent surge never throw back a straggling volume upon 
our coast. And is this scene to be acted and re-acted per- 
petually % Is one age to efface all vestige of the preced- 
ing, leaving its own feeble impress to be, in turn, erased by 
its successor? Shall a prolific press forever disgorge up- 
pon us its crude contents, only to be read — despised — .for- 
gotten ? This will be the case while the present system of 
reviewing is continued, while the meed of indiscriminate 
praise is awarded to all, while the insignificant author 
may strut in stolen honors, no one daring to pluck his 
borrowed plumage and hold him up to merited scorn and 
reprobation. But let some Johnson arise in our land, who 
can wield ' The pen of a ready writer,' and rebuke vi- 
cious authors with an imperial power, and half a century 
will produce in the literary world such a revolution as this 
country never witnessed. But such a change cannot be 
effected so long as the general interests of literature are 
sacrificed to individual aggrandizement, and the public 
press is made a pander to private gratification. 

A reasonable application of the critic's knife would have 
freed our literature from many huge excrescences which 
now deform it. But though the past is irretrievable, the 
future is not devoid of hope. The obvious tendency of 
causes now in operation, and the progress of the human 
mind towards the high destiny that awaits it, indicate that 
a brighter day is about to dawn. True, the bard of Man- 



76 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

tua no longer makes the balmy plains and vine-clad hills of 
Italy, vocal with the praises of his own ' plus ^neas.' 
Silent is the harp oi Orpheus and the tyre of Homer— des- 
olate are the halls and groves of the Academy — voiceless 
the tongues that once thundered invectives against Philip 
and Catalina. Bat did genius expire when the Macedo- 
nian conquered Greece ? Was the sun of science setting 
in eternal gloom when it cast long and dismal shadows 
upon the land of poetry and eloquence and song? Let 
the records of science — let the achievments of genius the 
last three centuries ansv/er the question. 

Too long has literature been associated with what is 
revolting in pagan superstition, or polluting in more refin- 
ed Christendom. It is in our power to furnish such a spec- 
tacle as the world never saw — a literature associated with 
all that is thrilling and grand and glorious in the religion 
of the cross — a literature before which genius shall never 
stand abashed, or modesty be put to the blush. Let it 
then be purified, elevated, refined. Let it no longer be 
prostituted to the base passions of avarice and ambition. 
Let its foundations be laid broad and deep in severe, pro- 
tracted thought ; and the superstructure will rise in fair 
and graceful proportions, an ornament to our country — a 
blessing to the world. 



DISPUTATION. 

Is t]ie Injiuence of severe or commendatory Criticism 
more favorable to Literature ? 

By E. C. Pritchett, Lo7ido?i, England. 

Loud and frequent is the boast that this is a practical 
age ; — an age when the gross and tangible is the general 
object of pursuit ; while the spiritual/ unseen though no 
less real, is either overlooked or ranked among secondary 
things. Hence many with utilitarian scorn will turn aside 
from a literary discussion. But let it be remembered that 
the transcript of his fellow's thoughts deals with man's 
mind; which, as it may be swayed to good or evil, is hap- 
piness or woe ; 

' in itself 
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.' 

Not unimportant is it then to consider the effects of Criti- 
cism, which occupies no small extent and maintains no 
mean rank in the Confederacy of Letters. Criticism is 
the tenth Muse. And where does she exhibit more of in- 
tellectual and moral beauty — when dealing censure, how- 
ever just, or when wreathing the laudatory chaplet around 
the brows of the poet and the sage ? 

It is an undoubted truth that benevolent emotions exert 
a favorable influence on the genius. The harp of the 
7 



78 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

soul like that of Memnon's statue discourses most excel- 
lent music, when the rising sun of gladness and good will 
sheds his sweet radiance. Hence we may infer that the 
literature of commendatory criticism will excel that w^hich 
evinces a more censorious tone. 

Again, our mental exercises take their character from 
the objects to which they are directed. Grandeur and 
beaut}^ will distinguish the productions of that mind which 
loves to contemplate the grand and beautiful. The critic, 
then, who prefers to dwell on the praiseworthy, will from 
that very circumstance be enabled to enrich and adorn his 
mother-tongue with profound reasoning, glowing thought, 
and noble sentiment. 

Such is the result which might be expected — but we are 
not left to mere conjecture. Among Johnson's ' Lives of 
the Poets,' that of Savage is justly most esteemed — Savage 
was Johnson's friend — the memory of old companionship 
softened the stern critic, and led him to hold up the excel- 
lencies of his former comrade rather than his defects. Thus 
w^as produced that model of critical biography. Turn w^e 
to a living example — look at the contrast between Christo- 
pher North the reviewer of Sotheby's Homer, and Christo- 
pher North the tormentor of some hapless Cockney bard- 
While he is dissecting the poetaster, the ridiculous is his 
sublime — sarcasm and derision the highest flight of his gen- 
ius. But anon there looms up on his mental vision the epic 
majesty of him, the blind and aged of Scio, who in his dark 
and lonely musings on the Hellespont's resounding shore, 

' Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey 
Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.' 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 79 

Christopher now holds converse with the spirit of Chap- 
man rude and strong, with tuneful Pope or sternly simple 
Cowper, or the more ample and vigorous Sotheby. He 
marks the loftiest of the grand, the most enchanting of the 
beautiful — He enlists the aid of intellectual and moral phi- 
losophy to explain how and why this charms or that awes 
the soul, while his over-flowing imagination pours forth a 
full gushing floj^d of illustration. 

Thus it is with critical literature. What is the bearing 
of the question on the more general interests of letters 1 
A refined public opinion must exert a corresponding influ- 
ence on authors. And it maybe said that the predomin- 
ance of censure will contribute to this end ; because the 
detection and exposure of error will be a safe-guard against 
it ; and will render more accurate the general standard of 
taste. But do we reason thus in analogous cases ? Will 
he become an eminent connoisseur in the fine arts, who 
spends his time in attending to the blemishes in a sign- 
painter's daub, or in noting the uncouth deformity of a 
misshapen idol? No — he must go study the works of 
the old masters, ' Titian's tints and Guide's air,' the won- 
ders of the Sistine Chapel, the sunny splendor of a Claude 
Lorraine — and the marble chiselled by a Phidias, a Buon- 
arotti, a Chantrey and Canova. So in morals — let a man 
be accustomed to the sight of vice ; and though at the be- 
ginning he may detest the monster, yet there is great dan- 
ger that at length he will 'first endure, then pity, then em- 
brace.' 

Even so let the prevailing tone of criticism be severity: 
and the public taste, grown familiar with faults, will be 



80 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

blunted — the standard of excellence will be degraded — 
and as the demand, so Vv ill be the supply. 

But what would be the direct influence on the commu- 
nity of authors ? Some men are painfully alive to an un- 
favorable sentence — they shrink away, and let the fangs of 
wounded vanity and disappointed ambition gnaw their 
hearts to death. Their first crude productions might have 
ripened. into golden fruitage, but all is lost — we linger by their 
graves, and sigh at the thought of w^hat they might have 
been. Such were Kirke White and John Jileats. Anoth- 
er equally sensitive concentrates his energies for a venge- 
ful retaliaftion — The w'orld which before sneered with the 
critics, changes sides — the critics themselves bow to an es- 
tablished reputation — But the triumphant vindicator of his 
own merits despises both, even w-hen anxious for their 
praise. He delights to show that he can enforce homage — 
his pen wdll be dipped too often in gall and wormwood — 
his w^ords \vill breathe "with scorn and sullen ^vrath. Such 
was Byron — There are many who seem to think that the 
whole of his inspiration was malice and all uncharitable- 
ness — that he was nothing if not Satanic ; and then they 
bless the Edinburgh Review which first wrought up his 
fierce passions, and so aroused his poetic fire. We would 
not ' o' er his cold ashes upbraid him,' but we mourn that 
he ever learned to spurn the opinion of his fellow-men, 
reckless whether it were right or wrong. He rejoiced to 
blazon forth his scorn — and so lust and hate polluted the 
stream, wdiich like the fountain of Blandusia, might have 
flowed purer than chrystal. That eagle of song too often 
stooped to unworthy prey — but his noblest flights were not 
sustained by the impetus of malign emotions — he soared 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 8i 

aloft when his eye turned away from his own wrongs, and 
gazed upward on the bright effulgence of ideal beauty. 

The scourge, which lashes the soul into either submis- 
sion or rage, will ijot stimulate it to honorable deeds. 
Away with it — let not critical literature, public taste, and 
authors be degraded by the prevalence of censure — Let 
the hope of glory rather than the fear of disgrace animate 
him who devotes his time to literary toil. 
7* • 



DISPUTATION. 

Ought the atte?npts to civilize the Indians of this coun- 
try to be ahajidonecl ? 

By I. F. FIoLTON, Vertnont. 

It is not wise to abandon a g-ood cduse as hopeless, until 
the obstacles to its success have been found insurmountable. 
The peculiar obstacles to Indian missions originate chief- 
ly in the influence of our own people on the missionaries 
and on the Indians; discouraging the one, and demoraliz- 
ing the other. This influence is principally exerted by 
traders and other intruders who have been led there by an 
insatiable thirst for gain, or have fled from impending jus- 
tice, and the restraints of civilized society. Here they lead 
a wild, lawless, and often a degraded life, defying all au- 
thority, human and divine, reckless of the future, and ready 
to commit any crime which avarice or depravity may 
prompt. - The Indians read the example of these demi-sava- 
ges, as a practical commentary on Christianity ; and in 
vain will you present them the gospel, till you convince 
them that it has its fruits unto holiness. 

And where are the m.issionaries, who, unmoved, can 
pursue their task — in itself so peculiarly trying to human 
patience — while their plans are frustrated and their char- 
acters vilified by outlaws, whose gains have been dimin- 
ished, and influence weakened by the improvement of the 
Indians. But when we add to this the persecution of civil 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 83 

authority equally unprincipled and avaricious, (as in the 
imprisonment of Worcester and Butler, and in the plun- 
dering of the missionary premises at Dwight,) need we 
wonder that our missionaries would rather encounter can- 
nibals, than the offscouring of civilization, countenanced 
by the government of Georgia? 

A sense of the wrongs that the Indians have suffered at 
our hands, has induced a prejudice against our religion. 
The history of our connection with the Indians, from 
Massasoit to Oseola, would form a volume not unlike the 
history of the Bucaneers, There are ' bloody leaves' ir^ 
the chronicles of Indian wrongs, to which the annals of 
African slavery can scarce furnish a parallel, I say no- 
thing of those pecuniary wrongs which they have suffered 
from governments with whom might makes right, and 
traders who deem superior intelligence a sufficient war- 
rant for transcendant villany. The story of Logan needs 
no repetition. Near the same time, a whole colony of 
christian converts were butchered in cold blood — literally 
butchered — because they would not unite with us in a war 
against their own tribe. The inhabitants of another colo- 
ny took refuge in a prison in Philadelphia, and the Qua- 
kers themselves took arms to save them from the fury of 
christian blood hounds. Think you the Indian has for- 
gotten his wrongs ? He never forgets. He rejects our re- 
ligion as stained with the blood of his brethren. 

But the introduction of ardent spirits has done more to 
defeat the efforts of benevolence than any other cause. 
To the Indian it is the Lotus whose taste enthralls its vic- 
tim ; the Circean cup which transforms him to a brute or a 
fiend, debasing his proud mind and robbing him of the 



84 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

rude virtues of the savage. It has been to him the box of 
Pandora, pouring forth diseases which his simple reme- 
dies cannot combat ; the apple of discord which has 
bred strife among themselves, and involved them in 
calamitous wars with the whites, in which their young 
men have fallen and left no name, — none of their blood in 
the veins of the living. Finally it has been the besom of 
destruction which has swept this whole land of its abori- 
ginal inhabitants. 

Such have been the obstacles to Indian missions. But 
they are passing away. The last act in the tragedy of 
national injustice is nearly past. The forcible removal 
of the Indians, in itself an act of infamous injustice, has 
broken up in sotne degree their savage habits, and placed 
them in far better circumstances for instruction. Being 
confined within narrow bounds, and on soil of inferior 
quality, surrounded by sands and fens and mountains, 
they have no room to wander, and nothing to fear from 
those intruders who rioted in their prosperity without any 
inclination to share their adversity. They are also stript 
of every thing which might tempt government again to 
stain its honor with robbery. Those acts of partial res- 
titution which we can make, vvill in some degree efface 
from their minds two centuries of wrongs. But our 
greatest hope is from the power of reform, Vvhich is ban- 
ishing the means of intoxication from our land ; and no- 
thing but a vigorous effort is Avanting to prevent the traffic 
in alcohol am.ong the Indians. This effort we must make. 
The present posture of Indian affairs imperiously demands 
increased exertion to save them from the destruction into 
which American cupidity has almost plunged them» 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 85 

But we must not forget that tlie Indian character pre- 
sents its peculiar facilities, as well as difficulties. They 
have no civil authority to prescribe the religion of the 
people ; no heathen rites, no priesthood endued with that 
peculiar cunning which always characterizes the minis- 
ters of a false religion. The field is clear. Tradition, 
so commonly the very citadel of idolatry, here seems even 
to invite the explanations of the Bible, These favorable 
circumstances are of themselves sufficient to counterbal- 
ance the special difficulties of Indian missions. Nor 
must we forget that their conversion was one object which 
led our pilgrim fathers to the shores of New England ; — 
that their early labors were crowned with success, and 
that the labors of our own day have been equally su"ccess- 
ful. The Cherokees have exhibited the rare spectacle of a 
republic constituted, an alphabet adopted, and a periodical 
printed by a people who, fifty years ago, were as savage 
as our ancestors in the days of Julius Ccesar. Where 
should we look for more favorable soil for missionary ex- 
ertion ? In other tribes the same results are slowly ta- 
king place ; and not a station but has been more success- 
ful than our mission to Palestine. And the tribes of the 
Pacific too, whose cry for help has come to our ears — 
shall we bid their messengers go back alone, and die hea- 
then ? 

But aside from these encouragements, independent of 
all these brightning prospects, the simple fact that the 
chief obstacles to their convertion originated with us, that 
they are sufferers by our injustice, desolated, degraded, 
and almost exterminated by our vices, forbids the idea of 



86 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

abandoning this ill fated race, God and the world have 
thrown the responsibility of their conversion upon us ;— 
we* must not, we will not leave them to perish unpitied and 
neglected, only to occupy a deeper place in the world of 
woe for their connection with a christian people. 



PHILOSOPHICAL ORATION. 

The relation of Right to the will of the Deity. 

By J. G. D. Stearns, New Ipswich, N, H. 

The foundation of right, the nature and obligation of 
virtue, have been favorite subjects of speculative philosophy 
in every age of the world. And on no subject in ethics 
has speculation been wilder or more diverse. The grov- 
eling sensualist has philosophised here, under the guidance 
of his wild passions, rather than his reason. The dwarfish 
materialist has here brought into play all the power of his 
moral mechanics. And here too the dreamy transcenden- 
talist has wandered, and mused, an.d had his visions. 
Soaring beyond the sphere for which his powers were 
fitted, the finite striving to explore the infinite is bewilder- 
ed and lost in the trackless expanse : it wanders, and strug- 
gles, and falls at last into the gulf of atheism. 

It was probably in view of the dangers of such specula- 
tion, and under a laudable zeal for the honor of the divine 
character, that many good men have been led to place the 
foundation of right in the will of the Deity. This theory, 
it is believed, places virtue on the clearest and safest ground. 
The will of God is plainly manifested by the light of na- 
ture and the clearer record of inspiration, and if it be 
the foundation as it is the rule of right, all the errors and 
dangers of philosophy are at once avoided. 



88 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

But there is no gain to truth or to virtue from such a 
theory. To urge the claims of virtue founded on the 
mere will even of an infinite Being is to inculcate passive 
submission to mere will and power. Such a theory finds 
,no according response in the nature of man. We know, 
we feel, that it is the rectitude of the law — the holiness of 
the will, which alone constitutes our obligation to obedi- 
ence. 

This theory is at war too Avith philosophy as it is with 
our nature. Right is not a creation of the Deity. It is 
antecedent in its nature to the Divine will. If God 
created right, he must have done it at some definite point of 
time in the past eternity of duration. Prior then to that 
time it had no existence. There was no such thing as 
right and wrong in the universe. And the Deity himself 
whom we now adore for the glory of his moral perfec- 
tions had no moral character. Though all his infinite en- 
ergies were incessaiTtly exerted in voluntary action none 
of those acts were either right, or wrong. But God al- 
ways acts moralljr. His very first act was a right act, 
and every act of his is right. Rectitude then is not a con- 
sequent of the divine volition. 

We cannot conceive the non-existence of right, any 
more than we can of space or duration ; and that which it 
is impossible to conceive not to exist, must exist necessari- 
ly. We cannot conceive of absolute nothing. Some- 
thing must exist by necessity. Right, is among the 
things that are necessary, and hence uncreated. 

Moreover, if right is right simply because God willed it 
to be right, and for no other reason, it follows, that in 
themselves there is no difference between right and wrong ; 



COM MENCE El ENT EXERCISES. 89 

that vice is just as excellent as virtue and virtue just as 
hateful and worthless as vice ; and had God willed, vice 
v/ould have been virtue and virtue vice, — a conclusion 
too shocking to conscience and reason for human belief. 
Right, then, is not founded on the will of God. It is in- 
dependent of all will and all power. Omnipotence itself 
can neither create nor alter it, for it is not the subject of 
power. Ifc is a cimple idea, distinct and ultimate of itself, 
and hence, incapable of analysis or definition. It is, how- 
ever, intelligible to every moral being: for, by the very 
constitution of his being he has a power of discerning 
moral qualities. That power is conscience, the highest, 
noblest power of man, connecting him with all that is sub- 
lime in virtue and glorious in immortality. Such then 
is the- nature of right, — self-existent, independent, un- 
changeable, eternal, universal, binding on every moral 
being. 

Is it objected to this view of right, that it is derogatory 
to the Deity ? So far is this from being true, it is the view 
which gives the highest glory to the Deit}?-. What con- 
stitutes the essential glory of the Adorable Supreme? Is 
it not the perfect rectitude, the infinite holiness of his 
character ? Is it not that he always does right ? that he 
acts, not from mere arbitrary will, but from a regard to the 
eternal principles of rectitude, of truth, justice, and benev- 
olence ? 

Right though so independent in its nature, is not unaf- 
fected by the divine will. The will of God increases our 
obligation to virtue, both in consequence of our moral re- 
lations to him and his ov/n infinite excellence. It is right 
to love all beings though God had not commanded it ; but 
8 



90 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

the divine command imposes higher obligations to do the 
same. Moreover, many things in themselves indifferent, 
are rendered obligatory by the will of God. And in all 
cases his will though not the foundation is the rule of duty. 
The ethical theory which makes right in its nature in- 
dependent and eternal, and the will of God the rule, is the 
only theory which alike answers the demands of true 
philosophy, establishes the claims of virtue on a firm and 
immoveable basis, and shields it from the attacks of 
false philosophy. We say to the sensualist, your scheme 
that makes virtue consist in the gratification of your own 
selfish passions is all a baseless fabric. It has no foundation 
in right, — that right which is eternal and condemns your 
desires as base and sinful. We say to the utility loving 
materialist, virtue is not a thing of circumstances. It rests 
on a basis which your philosophy is not large enough to 
compiehend, and which will survive when your philoso- 
*phy has perished. We say to the atheist, your impious 
attempt to deprive the universe of its God will not if suc- 
cessful give your soul that freedom from all restraint, 
to which you so ardently aspire. Right — eternal right 
will still exist making virtue still virtue, and vice still vice ; 
and obligation to love the one and hate the other, unscaih- 
ed and unimpaired, will still press upon your soul, and 
overwhelm you with all the horrors of despair. 



ORATION. 

Intellectual character of the men of the Revolution. 
By Stewart Robinson, Martinsburg, Va. 

The fathers of the American Republic, as the heroes of 
'76 have been honored with no measured meed of praise. 
Benefactors of a great nation, proverbial for its admira- 
tion of military achievments, national gratitude, and the 
spirit of the people alike delight to do them honor. 
Hence, on every return of the great national jubilee, the 
story of their toils, and battles, and defeats and victories is 
the constant theme of patriotic eloquence — and every fu- 
ture return of that day will only swell the note, as it ech- 
oes it on to coming generations. 

And this is no excessive eulogy. They fairly deserve 
it all. Heroes never endured more nobly ; or achieved 
more. Braver men never marched to a battle-field, than 
the men that fought and fell at Lexington. The blood that 
hallowed Bunker Hill, and dyed the plains of Camden was 
brave and noble blood, as ever honored any cause in the an- 
nals of war. But there are recollections clustering around 
the days the of Revolution, to awaken the enthusiasm of 
the scholar, not less than that of the soldier and patriot. 
We need not point, as our chief boast, to the martial prow- 
ess of the great names in American History. There are 
virtues portrayed on the pages of that history that we ad- 
mire far more. The godlike virtues of the champion of 



92 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

truth and freedom are portrayed there — the displays of 
genius — the triumph of mind in effecting the progress of 
enligiitened principle are recorded there — to the eternal 
honor of those venerated names. Their claim to this 
higher character has not been urged as it may be. It 
rests on grounds equally sure with their claim to the char- 
acter of Heroes. One great fact in history remains a 
standing evidence of their martial greatness. They 
fought and triumphed against England vv/hen her name 
was terrible to all the earth. Let a similar fact prove 
their intellectual greatness. They grappled mind with 
mind, in an intellectual contest for their own rights and the 
rights of men universally — and there, too, they triumphed 
against a generation of English statesmen that presented 
an array of intellectual power — such as never honored 
England before nor since. 

In the mental structure of those men there was a same- 
ness in some of the leading characteristics. Reared un- 
der all the irregularities of a colonial education, and the 
constant agitation peculiar to the times — the intellectual 
character became irregular and rugged, but strong and 
bold — of massive mxaterial and adapted to the trial in per- 
ilous tiraes. There were diversities, however, in that 
character, and its modes of development were various. 

First, there was the intellect of action — such w'as that of 
Washington, and with him those distinguished ia the 
field. The whole intellectual power of the man was con- 
centrated in action, and in his great acts have been reared 
a monument of that power which will never perish. The 
world of letters has indeed monopolized the title of intel- 
Ipr.tucbl for ^<^'=: '^""^ favorites, and we are Avcnt to 83sociate 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. ' . 93 

little of mental power with actions however great. But 
there has been mind in the world beside that expended on 
the tomes of the schools. Alexander, and Caesar and Na- 
poleon never gained their terrible ascendency without the 
aid of mind. • They never ruled the storm of popular pas- 
sion, taming the fierce natures of society, and yoking the 
tiger spirits of faction to their car of triumph, all by mere 
physical force. Greatness of action is doubtless a devel- 
opment of intellectual greatness, and, combined with wis- 
dom of action is an exhibition of mind in its noblest forms. 

In this view V/ashington stands pre-eminent in the his- 
tory of the world. It is hard to describe such a character 
as his. — It is known to us only through his great acts — 
yet there is in it something higher and purer than action 
alone can indicate. The spirit gleams through the clay, 
so brightly indeed, that we hardly know not the clay is 
there. Such is the energy and intensity of the intellectual 
power, that it infuses itself into, and elevates the character 
of his actions, till action itself seems to lose its comm^on na- 
ture and assume a nobler and a hiofher. 

There was another class of mind, developed in a mode 
more purely intellectual This was the intellect of Phi- 
losophy. Such were JefTerson and Franklin with the po- 
litical writers of the age. These in the world of science 
would have been ranked with Aristotle, Bacon, or New- 
ton. The same burning love of freedom — the same in- 
vincible energy impelled these as the others. But these 
were roused bv a moral excitement. Buried amid the 
silent shades of Monticello, Jefferson w^ould shake the 
world without armies or fleets, or the munitions of war. 
Calmly and coolly he threw from him the fetters of custom 



94 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES'. 

and prejudice which fettered other men, though Aristo- 
cratic birth and education bound those fetters more closely 
on him than on many others. Calmly too he girded him- 
self to fight the great battle of human liberty. And he 
wielded a power that would scatter like dust to the winds 
of heaven the castles of tyranny which ages had reared 
and rooted firm, and covered over with the mould of abuse 
and coruption. 

There was another class of mind — that adapted to in- 
cite to action. Such were Adams and Henry with all 
the orators of the Revolution. Their power will never be 
questioned. They have thrown around their age the 
charm of enchantment. The lonely relic of that noble 
age, even now at the -distance of sixty years finds his 
voice choked into silence and the tears gathering in his 
dim eyes, as if the spell had'again come over him, when 
he would tell us of Patrick Henry. And the grave voice 
of History and many tongued tradition alike labor in vain 
for words to tell us of their wondrous power. We can 
only bring them before us now as the objects of imagina- 
tion. We seem to watch the orator as he rises before 
the congregated mind on which he is now to practice the 
enchantment. He has no vulgar tricks of oratory — these 
will not serve him. He is to plead before intelligent, 
thinking men, not the cause of his own country merely, 
but that of the world. We watch him now 

' Untwisting- all the chords that tie 
The hidden soul of harmony.' 

We listen now to the calm yet earnest voice of sober rea- 
son — and follow him now as he rises to more impassioned 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 95 

tones in the call to action, and now as with the suppressed- 
breath — the heaving chest — the lightning-glancing eye, 
he denounces the violators of the rights of man. No ar- 
mor is proof against that power. It marks triumphantly 
the supremacy of the mind within. 

Such are the men whom heaven raised up to found the 
American Republic. Heaven did raise them up — for none 
but the wisdom of heaven ever formed a combination of mind 
so exactly adapted to the great work they had to do. One of 
these classes of mind, without the other, would have been 
great indeed, but not effectual. All combined they were just 
the minds adapted to achieve the will of heaven — and they 
did achieve it gloriously. The character of those men alrea- 
dy resembles that which it has taken ages to acquire for 
other men. It needs not the shades of time to hide its 
failures and magnify its greatness. It stands before us in 
the same clear and simple and majestic attributes as it did 
■ before those who saw it a living, acting character. It will 
go down just the sa.me to the latest ages. 



ORATION. 

The Immortality of Mental injluence^ — with the 
Valedictory Addresses, 

By William B. FIomer, Boston. 

The idea of eternity is essentially involved in the ope- 
rations of the human mind. If banished in one form, it 
will attach itself to some new association, and resume its 
prominence in the internal government. To the ancients, 
the immortality of the soul was shrouded in darkness, but 
they found a splendid stimulus to exertion in the immortal- 
ity of its influence. If they did not look upon an inextin- 
guishable source of light, the medium of its diffusion was 
Immensity. What was the diminutive center, to the radi- 
ations which could never be recalled 1 

Ambitious desires thus cherished, were nobly realised. 
The indebtedness of the^ present to the past, is almost in- 
conceivable to one who has not followed down the influ- 
ence of departed mind, and traced the commingling of its 
treasures in our own philosophy' and literature. Where 
would have been our mental science if the ancient sap'es 
had not struggled through their toilsome investigations, 
though it might often have been 

With eyes that rolled in vain 
To find the piercing ray, but found no dawn. 

In the seclusion of the grove they unravelled the intrica- 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 97 

cies of natare, not merely in the presence of admiring pu- 
pils, but to a multitude whom no man can number — a mul- 
titude than can but correct and re-model what can never 
be supplanted in the affections of the world. 

The posthumous influence of the classical poets is still 
more distinct and interesting. They left behind them a 
debasing superstition embodied in such forms of r:ereirl- 
cious beauty, as to kindle a passionate attachment which 
ao-es of refinement and civilization could not extinguish. 
Men fell down to worship before the sp^ "did altar, but 
the god was not there, and unconsciouslj :' ey paid their 
tribute to the handicraft of the creator, They left be- 
hind them principles of morality and of g6yernm.ent 
which held Society together for centuries. They changed 
the political aspect of kingdoms, and Ic- g after they wrote, 
the Conqueror of the world dreamed c :t the schemes of 
his quenchless ambition with their lifesome pictures be- 
neath his pillow. Critics made them the basis of rhetori- 
cal systems, and drew from them the code of laws to 
which the literary v/orld has subscribed allegiance. Many 
an image — a Avord — a thought — originating with them — 
will operate eternally in giving birth to new successions 
of images, or words, or thoughts, and each of these in turn, 
has a power of its own to move on in endless progression. 
More than all, these classical poets live and breathe in the 
spirit of our own Scholarship, mingling their own with 
the destinies of new minds, and adding immortality to im- 
mortality. 

There is another thought connected with the posthu- 
mous influence of ancient authors, We are deeply in- 
debted to some, no trace of whose existence remains ; and 



98 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

who never receive the homage of our admiration. We 
tread over the sepulchres of nations. The dissolving ele- 
ments of mortality commingle with the earth that nour- 
ishes our bodies. We breathe the air that is exhaled from 
the ashes of the dead. Yet their memories rot, in the very- 
process by which they form a part of our material nature. 
— Just so is it in the intellectual world. Minds have been 
forg"otten because decojnposed to enter into the constituent 
elements of the general intellect. Their sentiments were 
incorporated with the opinions of the world, and when 
mankind had committed their instructions to memory, 
the master spirit was no longer needed for reference. 
Writings that had become common place from the very 
value that had stamped them on the human breast, were 
thus left to sink to eternal oblivion, like a stream that is 
lost in the vastness of its own overfxow. 

There is another class exerting a mighty influence on 
posterity, not through their own writings, but by the agen- 
cy of the biographer. The transcript of their thoughts 
and feelings by another hand, becomes the guide of an en- 
ergy that could not direct and sustain itself The door 
that seemed forever closed in the agony of the last strug- 
gle, is thrown wide open, and the very power that spread 
the pall of death, will usher the spirit into a sphere that is 
infinite in extent. Thus life begins when it ceases, and it 
seems as if the voice that was soft and humble gathered 
compass and richness from the echoing walls of the sep- 
ulchre. 

In our day there is a general disposition to underrate the 
posthumous influence of the mind. The universal de- 
sire of immortality has been coolly resolved by philoso- 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 99 

phers into an illusion of the imagination. They have 
forgotten that it is an instinctive emotion, which the efforts 
of man may vary, but can never eradicate. Even poetry has 
lent her charm to confuse the brightness of earthly antic- 
ipations, and has thrown over the prospect of the future 
the dreaminess of her most evanescent images. 

Perhaps these speculations of worldly im.mortality are 
naturally absorbed in the hope of another and higher 
sphere of existence, yet they open a boundless field for 
thought, and enlarge our apprehensions of the dignity of 
,the human mind. An enlightened philosopy must teach 
us that this eternal influence is not confined to the learned 
and intellectual. In the wonderful power of association, it 
reveals to us an enchantress that dispenses her incantations 
to all alike. Thoughts that have been once breathed out 
in language or action she holds in the prison house of the 
memory, and they come forth at her bidding. Wherever 
mind exists, it leaves an impression which can never be 
effaced. ' It shall not return unto Thee void.' If there be 
such a thing as mental evaporation, the drops that vanish 
into thin air, are gathered to mantle the horizon for a 
season and descend again in showers that water the 
earth. ■ . - 

It is an important and a humbling consideration that 
this wonderful energy is inherent to the constitution of the 
mind. As independent is it of any impulse we may im- 
part, as the minute configurations of matter which are 
fraught with consequences so momentous to the physical 
universe. It is an exhibition of the Deity employing lit- 
tle causes for the execution of his most stupendous designs. 
A single mind obscure and uneducated, is laden with des- 



100 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

tinies which make its own individual eternity, a compara- 
tive trifle. It has an influence which is living on in an- 
other direction, and by the life it imparts to new minds, 
constantly branching out into new influences alike im- 
mortal. 

Far like the comet's way, through infinite space. 

Stretches the long nntravelled path of light 
Into the depth of ages : we may trace 

Distant the brightening glory of its flight 
Till the receding rays are lost to hurnc.n sight. 

In this view of the subject it is easy to see that the il- 
lustrious authors to whose influence we have alluded, 
w^ere a m.edium for the transmission of minds that preceded 
them. It was but a reciprocation of influence upon the 
vulgar herd, a discharge of the debt they owed the infe- 
rior. The mightiest movements of society, attributed to 
the hero they have immortalized, might be traced back to 
a far humbler source. The unpretending sentence utter- 
ed in the privacy of the closet has started a train of stu- 
pendous consequences. The delicate hand of maternal in- 
fluence has moulded the destines of empires, through 
the wisdom and prowess whose first germ it woke to 
being, and nurtured with tender assiduity. We ourselves 
are the subjects of this iransmigratio7i of intellect. ' Our 
fathers — where are they V A voice from the inner sanctu- 
ary of the soul proclaims that they are here. 'And the pro- 
phets — do they live forever V And the walls of the temple of 
God, send back the echo — ' they live forever.' The invisible 
spirits of the past are about us and within us. The thoughts 
suggested by the forgotten ancestor of a by-gone age, blend 
with the music of his voice, who died but yesterday — We 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 101 

tread in the footsteps of the departed, yet we know it not 
An unseen hand impels us. We turn, but the shadow 
eludes our grasp. 

By such influences we who are now to bid farewell 
to the associations of college life are surrounded. To those 
who occupied these stations before us, and whom this day 
of our annual festivity has gathered once more to the 
classic scenes of early years, we acknowledge ourselves 
intellectual debtors. We are proud in the consciousness 
that we form a portion of that chain of mental influence 
which binds this institution to eternity. 

Honored and Reverend Trustees, — 

We are indebted to you for this inestimable privilege. 
It was secured to us not without labour and solicitude. 
* Clouds and darkness prevented the dawn,' but you waited 
for their dissipation. In the wide diflusion of the light, 
whose rising you aided, you behold your own minds, acting 
on unborn generations, and there is your reward. 

Gentlemen, we are this day reminded that, in your in- 
fluence over us, and those who shall follow us, you have 
linked yourselves in with the dead. * A valued member 
of your board who participated in similar scenes a twelve- 
month since, is now no more. With expanded vision 
that departed associate is contemplating the influence of 
your exertions : and when you too shall he called away, 
may it be to see it widening and brightening till the eye 
of immortality can no longer follow it. 

* Israel E, Trask Esq. of Springfield. 
9 




102 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

Beloved President, 

The hour of our removal frem your parental guidance 
has now arrived. It seems but yesterday that you wel- 
comed us to the threshold of your beloved college, and 
now you are called to extend the parting hand, and dis- 
charge the last duties of farewell instruction. We have 
lingered awhile to refresh ourselves in 'the house of the In- 
terpreter,' and now he points us to 'the highway whose walls 
are salvation.' We cannot realize the solicitude which 
burdens your mind at this moment. You have studied 
and you know our weaknesses. From the eminence 
which age and experience afford, you already follow us 
in prospect through the winding mazes of our pathway, 
and over the dark mountains where many a traveller has 
stumbled to rise no more. If the father lives in the spirit 
and character of the son, be it our prayer that our minds 
may mature as you have guided their first developements, 
and your impressions abidingwithin us, there shall be 
many to rise up and call you blessed. 

Respected Instructors; — 

To you also thisjs an interesting and solemn occasion. 
Your account, with immortal minds is about to be sealed 
up. You may not watch their progress, but -there is the 
image you have stamped upon them, and there it will re- 
main forever ; 

haerent infixi pectore vultus 
Verbaque. 

We are oppressed by the thought, that we too are re- 
sponsible for the manner in which Ave have yielded to 
those influences, but the remembrance of ourneglect serves 



COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 103 

to enhance the value of your instructions. — They shall be 
cherished among our fondest memories. 

We too, Classmates, are this day called to separate. A 
crowd of emotions rises on the mind, as we contemplate the 
dissolution of the bond by which we have so long been 
connected. Painful recollections rush upon us, but this is 
no place to recount them. ' The heart knoweth its own bit- 
terness.' Let the secrecy of the closet witness the fervor of 
our penitence, and the ear of private friendship-' listen to 
the unburdening of feelings which cannot be here ex- 
pressed. 

We have reached another point of transition. It is a 
point of immense moral interest whether we look at the 
past or the future- We leave behind us impressions 
which can never be efTaced. Our intellectual characters 
have been interweaving themselves with the early devel- 
opements of our still youthful institution. - We carry along 
with us, likewise influences that are eternal. The inter- 
change of thought and feeling we have here enjoyed has not 
been destitute of power upon ourselves. — It cannot be de- 
nied that new associations will crowd from the mind these 
attachments, and the sympathies which are now bleeding, 
the hand of time can bind up and heal. Yet memory will 
linger with interest upon the scenes fromwhich we are now 
about to separate, and old-age will leap over the oblivious 
chasm of maturity to find them. But should that ambassa- 
dor between the past and future — should memory— be un- 
faithful and forget the trust, the connection can never be dis- 
solved. We are indisolubly linked in with one another's des- 
tinies. There is not a mind so humble that its traces will 



104 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 

not be seen in the progress of its fellows, and that will not it- 
self bear off some portion of the common treasury. It is 
as if for four years our separate intellectual existences 
have commnigled and floAved on together, and this day 
the single channel breaks forth into its numerous outlets. 

Classmates, we are not all here to day. * Six of .those 
who joined hand in hand with us at first, the companions of 
our trials, our studies, our hopes, are in eternity. Truly 
the influences of the departed press upon us here. We 
are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, that speak to our 
hearts with an eloquence that cannot be resisted. 

To two only we were permitted the privilege .of dis- 
charging the last rites of affectionate sympathy. The 
heavy remains of fone we conveyed to unsuspecting friends 
preceded but an hour by the heavier tidings of his death. 
The bones of the J other repose in yonder Churchyard. 
We followed them to their narrow home. A stone marks 
out the spot, where we laid them, and discloses the cheer- 
ing inscription — ' Thy brother shall rise again '—Let it be 
inscribed upon our hearts, and when in future life we hear 
of the departure of one after another of our number, let it 
recur to us with elevating and consoling energy — ' Thy 
brother shall rise again' — God grant that to each of us 
that resurrection may be full of glory. 



* S.E, Wight, 


Troy, N. Y. Died. 


April, 


1833. 


J. P. Leland 


Natick, " 


July, 


1834. 


t P, C. Walker 


Belchertown, '• 


Nov., 


1834. 


B. W. Kellogg, 


Windham, Me. " 


April, 


1835, 


H.N.Whipple, 


Hardwick, Vt. ;^ * ' 


April, 


1835, 


+ D. C. RowelL 


Cornish, N. H. 


April, 


1836 



